A CENTURY OF DRINK REFORM 



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United States 









August f. Fehlandt 



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A 

Century of Drink Reform 



IN THE 



United States 



BY 

AUGUST F. FEHLANDT 



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CINCINNATI: JENNINGS AND GRAHAM 
NEW YORK: EATON AND MAINS 



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AUG 13 1904 
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Copyright, 1904, by 
AUGUST F. FEHIiANDT 






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" O TVillie brewed a peck o' maut, 
And Kob and Allan cam to pree ; 
Three blither hearts that lee lang nicht 
Ye wadna found in Christendie. 

We are na J foil, we 're no that fou, 

But just a drappie in our e'e ; 
The cock may craw, the day may daw, 
'But ay we '11 taste the barley bree." 

— Burns. 



'The moon still fills her silver horn, 

But, ah ! her beams nae mair they see ; 
Xor crawing cock, nor dawning morn, 
Disturbs the worm's dark revelry. 

For they were na' fou, na' nae that fou, 
But clay-cauld death has clased ilk e'e ; 

And waefu' ! now the gowden moon 
Beams on the graves of a' the three." 

— Anox. 



FOREWORD. 



The finest and most difficult of human achieve- 
ments, whether for man individually as a personal 
unit, or collectively as a political unit, is the art 
of self-government. Ignorance — Indifference — 
Self-interest, this is the Cerberus that ever lies at 
the gateway of humanity's under-world, that the 
imprisoned Man may not escape. 

Among a people where a monarch holds abso- 
lute sway, the problem of government is simple. 
His word is law, and the people obey him. But 
where the people themselves are allowed to speak 
and choose, complications at once enter into the 
problem. Opinions and desires will come into con- 
flict, and the self-interests of men will trespass 
upon the welfare of the whole. Besides, social 
laws and forces are many and complex, and the 
ways of evil devious. Democracy can yield her 
best fruits only where intelligence and sound 
morals generally prevail. 

7 



8 Foreword. 

Where there is but one voice in the soul of 
man — the voice of God — the problem of self-gov- 
ernment or self-control, too, is simple. Man obeys 
that voice, and his rich heritage is peace and soul 
growth. But with many conflicting unchained de- 
sires, like so many voices calling to him, and with 
personal freedom of choice, man does not always 
listen to wisdom or goodness, and he fails of his 
best success, and may fail utterly. 

In no one thing is this illustrated more forcibly 
than in man's struggle with his appetite for strong 
drink. For generations and centuries he has been 
brought under its seductive influence. Every age 
and every condition of society, from half-savagery 
to highest civilization, bears witness to the enslav- 
ing and destructive power of this drug. So mani- 
fest has become man's weakness, so multiplied the 
sorrow and shame and outrage growing out of it, 
that after the occasional voice of admonition by 
some prophet of God, the conscience and humane 
sentiment of Christendom has in this latter time 
applied itself in mighty earnestness to the situ- 
ation. 

Of this struggle, than which there is no more 



Foreword. 9 

stirring page in all the annals of human liberty, 
it is the purpose of this book to give a brief out- 
line. Of the main epochs in this struggle, its men 
and its measures, no man should* be ignorant. 
Compelled of necessity to some limitation of our 
theme, the narrative will confine itself to this land 
where the reform first took definite shape, a land 
where the experiment of self-government was to 
be tested first on a large scale, and whose people 
are determined, we believe, that as touching those 
things which vitally affect the interests of civil- 
ization, this experiment shall not prove a failure. 

And yet, after a full hundred years, the end is 
not. If these pages shall contribute aught to 
hasten it, it will not be because of any effort to 
arouse the indifferent or to preach to the wicked, 
but rather, if it please God, by pointing out direc- 
tions to those who are already inquiring the way 
out. The Author. 

1904, Independence Day. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



A. AGITATION. 

I. 

Chapter I. The Awakening. — Moderation. 

1785-1826. 

Page 
The Drinking Customs of Society. — Eeceive First 
Effective Blow from Dr. Benjamin Rush. — His 
Work. — The First " Temperance " Societies. — 
Voices from the Pulpit. — Dr. Rush at the Presbyte- 
rian General Assembly, 1811. — The Churches Take 
Up the Question. — Lyman Beecher's Six Sermons, 19 



II. 

Chapter II. Progression. — Abstinence. 
1826-1851. 

First Period, 1826-1836 — Abstinence from Spirits. 

The American Temperance Society, Boston, 1826. — 
Dr. Justin Edwards. — Effective Laborers and Lit- 
erature at Opening of this Period, 1826-1831. — 
Temperance Reform Introduced Abroad. — Golden 
11 



12 Table of Contexts. 

Page 
Age of Temperance Literature, 1831-1836. — Prog- 
ress and Growth. — First National Temperance 
Convention, Philadelphia, 1833, 52 

Second Period, 1836-1851 — Teetotalism. 

Second National Temperance Convention, Saratoga, 
1836. — The Washingtonian Movement, 1840.— 
Hawkins. — Not Prevention Merely, but Reclama- 
tion now the Program of the Reform. — Abraham 
Lincoln. — Fraternal Temperance Orders: Recha- 
bites, 1841; Sons of Temperance, 1842; Cadets of 
Temperance ; Templars of Honor and Tem- 
perance, 1845 ; Good Templars, 1851 ; First World's 
Temperance Convention, London, 1846. — Gough. — 
Father Mathew in America, - 76 

III. 

Chapter III. Culmination. — Prohibition. 

1851-1856. 

The Man Undoing the Work of the Reform Discov- 
ered. — Neal Dow's Interview with the Rumseller. 
— The Father of Prohibition. — Successive Steps 
Toward Complete Prohibition. — First United 
States Supreme Court Decision on Temperance 
Question, 1847. — Prohibition Enacted: 1851, 
Maine ; 1852, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Massachu- 
setts, Vermont ; 1853, Michigan; 1854, Connecti- 
cut; 1855, New York, New Hampshire, Nebraska 
Territory, Delaware, Indiana. — Progress in Other 
States. — Reform Suddenly Arrested.— Slavery.— 
Secession, -------- 104 



Table of Coxtents. 13 

B. COMPLICATION. 

INTEENAL EE VENUE ACT, JULY 1, 1862. 
TAXATION. 



Chapter IV. Its Meaning for the Government. 

Page 
1. Permission. — 2. Protection. — 3. Partnership. — 
4. Promotion. — National Eevenue from Liquor 
Trade. — Capital Invested, Output, and Per Capita 
Consumption in the United States, - 139 



II. 

Chapter Y. Its Meaning for the Liquor Trade. 

I. Organization for Greater Efficiency ; Larger Cap- 
ital; Wealth. — II. Organization to Wield Political 
Power. — The United States Brewers' Association, 
November 12, 1862. — The National Protective Asso- 
ciation, 1886. — Eesources and Methods of the 
Liquor Power, - - 172 

III. 

Chapter YI. Its Meaning for the Free Citizen. 

A Bribe to Conscience. — Money and Morals Incom- 
mensurable. — Where all the Money Comes From. 
— The Sound Theory of Exchange. — Approximate 
Money Loss to Society Annually through the 
Drink Trade, 193 



14 Table of Contents. 

C. EDUCATION. . 
I. 

Chapter VII. Moral Movements Since 

the War. 

Page 
(1) National Temperance Society and Publication- 
house, 1865. — (2) Royal Templars of Temperance, 
1869.— (3) Catholic Total Abstinence Union of 
America, 1872. — (4) Church (Episcopal) Tem- 
perance Society, 1881. — (5) The Reform Clubs and 
Gospel Temperance ; Osgood, Reynolds, Murphy. — 
(6) The Woman's Crusade, 1873-4. — (7) The 
Woman's Christian Temperance Union, 1874; 
Miss Frances Willard, 221 

II. 

Chapter VIII. Legal and Political Measures 
Since the War. 

Changed Conditions. — The Prohibition Party. — (1) 
Citizens' Law and Order League, 1877.— (2) The 
High-License Policy, Nebraska, 1881.— (3) The 
Dispensary System, South Carolina, 1893; The 
Gothenburg System. — (4) State Constitutional 
Prohibition: Kansas, 1881; Iowa, 1882; Maine, 
1884; Rhode Island, 1886; North and South 
Dakota, 1889 ; Defeated in Other States ; Aggre- 
gate Vote. — (5) National Constitutional Prohibi- 
tion labored for; Blair and Colquitt. — (6) The 
National League for the Suppression of the Liquor 
Traffic, 1885.— (7) The Anti-Saloon Republican 
Movement, 1886-88. — (8) The National Anti- 
Saloon League, 1895, 248 



Table of Contents. 15 

III. 

Chapter IX. Ground Won and Ground of 

Conflict. 

Page 

I. Total Abstinence . — Ethics of Moderation. — Science 
and Alcohol. — II. Legislative Suppression of Pub- 
lic Traffic. — Philosophy and Results of So-called 
Substitutes for the Saloon. — Ground of Conflict. — 
Is Public Sentiment Sufficiently Advanced to 
Sustain Prohibitory Laws ? — Probable Seat of 
Trouble, 279 

D. ADJUDICATION. 

I. 

Chapter X. The Alleged Failures of 
Prohibition. 

Twofold Cause for Lack of Complete Success of 
Prohibition. — First, Area. Handicap of Local 
Option, and of State Prohibition. — United States 
Supreme Court Decisions Bearing on Interstate 
Commerce, 1888, 1890. — Ethics of Local Option 
Principle. — Second, Method. Laws Passed by Non- 
partisan Method Enforced by Party Method. — 
Difficulties and Failures, ----- 315 

II. . 

Chapter XL The Lessons of Experience. — 
A Temperance Constituency. 

Conclusions from So-called Failures of Prohibition. — 
Personal and Political Morals. — Consistent Non- 
partisanship the Key to Success. — A Temperance 
Constituency, ------- 357 



16 Table of Contents. 

III. 

Chapter XII. The Prohibition Party 
Movement. 

Page 
Nature and Function of a Political Party. — Perver- 
sion in Practice: Party Prejudice. — Prohibition 
Party Vote. — The Most Stubborn Obstacle in the 
Entire Reform. — Ground of Hope. — The Imme- 
diate Program, - 385 



A. AGITATION. 

17 



(I.) 

CHAPTEE I. 

The Awakening: Moderation". 

1785-1826. 

" O madness ! to think use of strongest wines 
And strongest drinks our chief support of health, 
When God, with these forbidden, made choice to rear 
His mighty champion, strong above compare, 
Whose drink was only from the limpid brook. " 

A hundred years ago nearly everybody took 
something. Liquor was to be found on every side- 
board. Besides the grogshop, every grocery sold 
it, and no tavern was without it. Freer was its 
use than water by the human species. 

It was the regular table beverage in the family, 
and was invariably pressed upon caller and guest. 
The doctor in his calls upon the sick, the minister 
in his round of parish duties, everywhere partook 
of the recruiting drink. To refuse on such occa- 
sion to drink with the lady of the house, had such 
thing been thought of, would have been a discour- 
tesy, even an insult. It was the universal mark of 

19 



^ 



-0 A Cextuey of Dei^k Kefobm. 

hospitality. At a christening, a wedding, a fu- 
neral: at balls, parties. hi;sk::igs. a barn or house*- 
ising; at town-meetings, musters, cattle-sho"-. 
fairs; at the dedication of a meeting-house, the 
ordination or installation of a minister, or any 
other traj n or assembly whatever, whether 

private or public, social or business, custom de- 
manded that there must be something to drink. 

But not merely as an agency for promoting 
sociability — or solemnity, as the case might be — 
did liquor serve in that day ; it was believed that 
man could not really do hard work without it. 
Mechanics and laboring men were provided with 
a daily ration of spirits, to which the town bell 
summoned them at four and at eleven, as regu- 
larly as meals were provided at other hours. The 
farmer, during harvest and haying time, kept his 
help in the field constantly supplied with a bottle 
of whisky or Sew England rum. The man who 
couldn't drink was not supposed to be of much 
account when it came to hard work. This beverage 
was believed to be equally efficacious, now against 
the burning summer heat, now against winter's 
bitterest cold. Strength and staying power were 



The Awakening: Moderation. 21 

always promoted by its use. The inference that 
strong drink makes strong men, was perhaps not 
wholly unnatural. Not until the fatal effects of 
such belief and practice forced their damaging evi- 
dence peremptorily upon the attention of thought- 
ful minds, was the soundness of this view ever 
seriously questioned. 

The liquors in use embraced all kinds. There 
were gin, ale, beer, wine, cider, cider-brandy, 
whisky, rum, and that favorite Sabbath drink, on 
coming home from church, flip, a drink of home- 
brewed beer with an infusion of spirits, sweetened 
and seasoned with sugar and nutmeg, and warmed 
with a red-hot poker. But by far the most common 
drink was rum. West India rum, whose manu- 
facture followed upon the introduction of sugar- 
cane into those islands at the middle of the seven- 
teenth century, formed one of the chief articles 
of commerce in those days. A half-century later 
New England rum was added to the trade. 

How much liquor was consumed we can not 
definitely compute. We have, however, some rec- 
ord of its results. Intemperance was widespread, 
with its train of want and woe. It was a common 



22 A Centuey of Deink Refoem. 

maxim that no man was to be found who had not 
been drank at least once in his life. The evil had 
become aggravated, and reached its climax during 
the epoch following the Revolutionary War. The 
American soldiers had been furnished with spirits 
by order of Congress, that they might better sus- 
tain the exposures and fatigue incident to war. 
With their home-coming, the unsettled condition 
of the country, the factions and jealousies, the 
spread of French skepticism, and the general low 
tone of morals and religion, intemperance came 
like a rising tide upon the land, until it came to be 
generally asserted that Americans drank more 
liquor, per capita, than any other people on earth. 

It was during this period that we observe the 
first signs — the stir that presages an awakening. 
The occasional voice of warning hitherto had pro- 
duced no perceptible results. The strong man had 
only turned over to sleep on, while the enemy was 
busy sowing tares. 

The person who more than any other was in- 
strumental in effecting this awakening was that 
distinguished American physician and citizen, Dr. 
Benjamin Rush, of Philadelphia. To his labors 



The Awakening: Moderation. 23 

the nineteenth-century world-wide temperance 
movement can be traced by lines of direct influ- 
ence. Seldom is it that a reform can boast of such 
a birthright! A graduate of Princeton and of 
Edinburgh, he became a professor in the Univer- 
sity of Pennsylvania, and attained a position of 
undisputed pre-eminence in the medical profession 
of America. The "Sydenham of America/' as 
men called him, he was the central figure in the 
medical world at Philadelphia, as Cullen was at 
Edinburgh and Boerhaave at Ley den. 

But his labors were not limited to his profes- 
sion. He was the friend and promoter of every 
interest of humanity and religion. Among the 
builders of the American Republic he must be 
assigned a large place. Early in 1776, when a 
number of the Colonies had expressed themselves 
on the question of independence, he brought his 
own State, which had not yet moved, also in line 
for independence. A member of the Continental 
Congress of 1776, he was one of the signers of the 
Declaration of Independence. During the war he 
was physician-general in the middle department 
of the army, and after its close he became a mem- 



24 A Cestuey or Deixx Repoem. 

ber of the Constitutional Convention of 1787. 
During the last fourteen years of his life he was 
treasurer of the United States mint. While others 
were interested in the growth of commerce and 
in the expansion of our material resources, Rush 
was interested in the expansion of the human mind 
growing out of independence and self-government. 
He advocated free schools and the education of 
women. He was one of the chief founders of Dick- 
inson College at Carlisle, Pa., and of the Phila- 
delphia Dispensary, the first institution of its kind 
in the United States, extending its blessings to 
thousands of the sick poor. He was one of the 
founders of the first anti-slavery society, in 1775, 
"The Society for the Relief of Free Begroes Un- 
lawfully Held in Bondage." He was one of the 
founders, also, of the Philadelphia Bible Society. 
He advocated the use of the Bible in the schools, 
and strenuously opposed capital punishment except 
for capital offenses. 

A type of the polished gentleman, a brilliant 
conversationalist and generous host, Rush never 
neglected his duties to the sick, nor disdained to 
minister to the humblest. During his more than 



The Awaked i^g : Moderation. 25 

thirty years as attending physician in the Phila- 
delphia Hospital he is said never to have missed 
his daily visit. He rendered large gratuitous serv- 
ice to the poor, and exhorted his students to be 
especially attentive to them, quoting Boerhaave 
that "he esteemed them his best patients, for God 
was their paymaster." His prescriptions were not 
confined to doses of medicine, but to the regulation 
of diet, air, dress, exercise, and mental condition 
of his patients, as an aid to the curing or prevent- 
ing of disease. 

It is from this man, holding medals and honors 
from the crowned heads of Europe, whose activities 
covered so wide a field, whose interests were so 
humanitarian, — it is from this man that the drink- 
ing customs of society received their first effectual 
rebuke. His pen, so busy on other themes also, 
arrested attention. The fullness of time had, it 
seems, come. 

His "Inquiry into the Effects of Ardent Spirits 
on the Human Body and Mind" appeared in 1785. 
This date is the starting point in temperance chro- 
nology. The inquiry was directed to ardent spirits 
only — the distilled liquors, the most manifest evil 



26 A Century of Drink Reform. 

of the day. Fermented liquors containing as they 
do only a comparatively small percentage of al- 
cohol, it was thought that they could but seldom 
be drunk in sufficient quantities to produce intoxi- 
cation. The pamphlet enumerates the immediate 
effects in a fit of drunkenness, the symptoms of 
"this odious disease :" unusual garrulity or silence ; 
captiousness and a disposition to quarrel; uncom- 
mon good humor; profane swearing and cursing; 
a disclosure of secrets; a rude disposition to tell 
persons their faults in company ; certain immodest 
actions; a clipping of words; fighting, hallooing, 
singing, roaring, imitating the noise of brute ani- 
mals ; jumping, tearing off clothes, dancing naked, 
breaking glasses and china, and dashing other arti- 
cles of household furniture upon the floor. The 
paroxysm of drunkenness is at length completely 
formed. "The face now becomes flushed, the eyes 
project and are somewhat watery, winking is less 
frequent than natural; the underlip is protruded, 
the head inclines a little to one shoulder, the jaw 
falls, belching and hiccough take place, the limbs 
totter — the whole body staggers. The unfortunate 
subject of this history falls on his seat; he looks 



The Awakening: Moderation. 27 

around him with a vacant countenance, and mut- 
ters inarticulate sounds to himself ; he attempts to 
rise and walk." He falls on his side, rolls on his 
back, now closes his eyes and falls into a heavy 
sleep. In this condition he lies from ten, twelve, 
and twenty-four hours, to two, three, four, and five 
days, an object of pity and disgust. His recovery 
from this fit of intoxication is marked by several 
peculiar appearances. "He opens his eyes and 
closes them again, he gapes and stretches his limbs, 
he then coughs and pukes, his voice is hoarse, he 
rises with difficulty, and staggers to his chair, his 
eyes resemble balls of fire, his hands tremble, he 
loathes the sight of food, he calls for a glass of 
spirits to compose his stomach, now and then he 
emits a deep-fetched sigh or groan from a tran- 
sient twinge of conscience ; but he more frequently 
scolds and curses everything around him. In this 
state of languor and stupidity he remains for two 
or three days before he is able to resume his former 
habits of business and conversation." 

The chronic effects of the habitual use of ardent 
spirits are next mentioned — decay of appetite; 
sickness at stomach ; vomiting of bile ; obstructions 



28 A Century of Drink Reform, 

of the liver; jaundice and dropsy; hoarseness and 
a husky cough, terminating often in fatal disease 
of the lungs; diabetes; redness and eruptions on 
the body, beginning generally on the nose; fetid 
breath, frequent belchings; epilepsy; gout, colic, 
palsy, apoplexy; lastly, madness. Spirits predis- 
pose to every form of acute disease. The solitary 
instances of longevity, now and then, among hard 
drinkers a no more disprove the deadly effects of 
ardent spirits than the solitary instances of recov- 
ery from apparent death by drowning prove that 
there is no danger to life from a human body lying 
an hour or two under water." 

The body, after death from ardent spirits, 
shows upon dissection — contraction of fibers of 
stomach and bowels; abscesses, gangrene, and 
scirrhi in the viscera ; contraction of bronchial ves- 
sels, blood vessels, and tendons in many parts more 
or less ossified. 

The effects of ardent spirits upon the mind are 
pointed out — the impairing of the memory, weak- 
ening of the understanding, and perversion of the 
moral faculties — falsehood, fraud, theft, unclean- 
ness, murder. The sorrow and shame inflicted 



The Awakening: Modeeatioit. 29 

upon the family and kindred, the reproach upon 
religion, the dilapidation and impoverishment of 
house and possessions, are here pictured. 

The arguments employed to support the com- 
mon use of ardent spirits are then taken up: 
1. That they are necessary in very cold weather. 
The author shows that the temporary warmth they 
produce is always followed by a greater disposition 
of the body to be affected by cold, and suggests that 
warm clothing and a good meal are a more durable 
method of preserving bodily heat. 2. That ardent 
spirits are necessary in very warm weather. Dr. 
Rush shows that experience proves the opposite; 
that spirits increase, instead of lessening the effects 
of heat upon the body, and thereby dispose to dis- 
eases of all kinds. He quotes the observations of 
Dr. Bell, "that rum, whether used habitually, mod- 
erately, or in excessive quantities in the West 
Indies, always diminishes the strength of the body, 
and renders men more susceptible of disease, and 
unfit for any service in which vigor or activity is 
required." Rush contends, "as well might we 
throw oil into a house, the roof of which was on 
fire, in order to prevent the flames from extending 



BO A Cmstuky of Duixe: Refoem. 

to the inside, as pour ardent spirits into the stom- 
ach to lessen the effects of the hot snn upon the 
skin." 3. That ardent spirits sustain the body in 
hard labor. Dr. Rush points to the horse, "with 
every muscle of his body swelbd from morning tiD. 
night in the plow" — does he make signs for a 
draught of toddy, or a glass of spirits, to enable 
him to cleave the ground or climb a MH! Eb, he 
requires nothing bat cool water and substantial 
food. "There is no nourishment in ardent spirits. 
The strength they produce in labor is of a transient 
nature, and is always followed by a sense of weak- 
ness and fatigue." 

The only safe and reasonable course for those 
addicted to spirits is to abstain entirely and at 
once. By the use of grog and toddy men have been 
led to love spirits in their more destructive mix- 
tures. "Were it possible," Rush cries, "for me to 
speak with a voice so loud as to be heard from the 
river St. Croix to the remotest shores of the Mis- 
sissippi, I would say: Friends and fellow-citizens! 
avoid the habitual use of those two seducing liq- 
uors, whether they be made with brandy, rum, gin, 
Jamaica spirits, whisky, or what is called cherry 
bourse." 



The Awakening : Moderation. 31 

Let those in authority be petitioned to limit the 
number of taverns, to impose heavy duties upon 
ardent spirits, to inflict a mark of disgrace or tem- 
porary abridgment of civil rights upon every man 
convicted of drunkenness, and to place the property 
of habitual drunkards into the hands of trustees 
for the benefit of their families. Let the different 
Christian denominations unite to make the con- 
sumption and sale of ardent spirits a subject of 
ecclesiastical jurisdiction, the Methodists and the 
Society of Friends having already for some time 
past viewed them as contraband articles to the pure 
laws of the Gospel. "Ministers of the Gospel, of 
every denomination in the United States, aid me 
with all the weight you possess in society, from the 
dignity and usefulness of your sacred office, to save 
our fellow-men from being destroyed by the great 
destroyer of their lives and souls." 

Such a trumpet blast had never before been 
heard. So strong are the walls of custom that it 
did not, of course, lay them low at once, but it 
caused them to shake and become less secure, from 
which at length they did fall. Of all of Bush's 
writings this was the most widely read. The year 



i A Czxttjet of Brtkhk: Refobm. 

after its first appearance it was reprinted in the 
Gentleman s Magazine in England, Hush made 
continued and special efforts to extend its circula- 
tion, by presenting copies to the clergy, to religions 
and other bodies, and by personally urging the 
subject upon the attention of men. It created no 
immediate organized following. That day had not 
~r~ ::ne. loo i: i:oooo ^::> in ^fi; rodois. 
it being the first time that a man of such com- 
manding ability and fame had ever attempted to 
set this subject forth in anything like a scientific 
form. It laid foundations for those that -wero to 
come after. 

For bis :doir :oro::oroz::o ?:o.~b.::i::Ls Pr. Poosb 
"os b:od:;oifs,s iioob:::od. :: s:oo-e riTrio :; liis :^rz 
Q'oobor onr-rsrrT. .-.m ;; Lis 3.so:odo:i:n ~ i:b roon 
of abstemious habits, notably the early Methodist 
preachers, such men as Adbury and Coke^ who were 
£roc"o:i:> e^:or:oinoi bon-s^ob Lis b:soi:bolo r: of. 
Fbf VTosio7= ---" - " -""---- ^---e -"- '-"•"-'---- opoizrs: :be 
mso or.0 sobe of soiri:o;:\:s b:\::rs. o o:si:i::: :: 
which the practice of die early preachers in that 
deioicoinori::: goner bdT ::io£:ooori. 

Eu: cue 0.0100 iroos: no; bo :mi;:ei — A_::;d:o~ 



The Awakening : Modebation. 33 

Benezet. An exile with the Huguenots from 
France, he became a resident, successively, of Hol- 
land, of England (where as a boy he united with 
the Society of Friends), and of Philadelphia. One 
of the kindliest of men, his philanthropic impulse 
drew him forth from the private pursuit of teach- 
ing and brought him before the world to advocate 
the cause of the oppressed. The black man found 
in him a warm friend and zealous champion. He 
first influenced Dr. Eush to take up the question of 
slavery, and was one of the organizers — with Rush, 
Franklin, and others — of the first anti-slavery soci- 
ety. Benezet wrote an Historical Account of 
Guinea, which fell into the hands of a young Eng- 
lish student, Thomas Clarkson, and determined his 
future career as an abolitionist. 

Benezet took up the cause of the Indian, and 
helped to form, in 1756, "The Friendly Associ- 
ation for Regaining and Preserving Peace with 
the Indians by Pacific Means." He wrote against 
war. On these themes he carried on a voluminous 
correspondence, including the royalty and nobility 
of Europe and the leading men in Church and 
State on both sides of the Atlantic. May 3, 1784, 
3 



34 A Cezstuey of Deixk Refoem. 

was a day of universal grief — Benezet was dead. 
The day of his burial brought together the largest 
gathering that had ever assembled on a similar 
occasion in Philadelphia, and men envied the 
honors of Benezet above the fame of General Wash- 
ington. 

Both by his example and by the labors of his 
pen Benezet was one of the notable forerunners of 
the temperance reformation. A full decade before 
the appearance of Dr. Push's essay Benezet had 
written a pamphlet against spirituous liquors, 
''The Mighty Destroyer Displayed/' warning 
against the common use of any drink "which is 
liable to steal away a man's senses and render him 
foolish, irascible, uncontrollable, and dangerous." 

Great changes come slowly. The period of in- 
cubation is long in proportion as the idea that is 
working itself out is powerful and permanent. An 
agreement among the farmers in Litchfield County, 
Connecticut, in 1789, that they would do their 
work in harvest without furnishing the customary 
spirits, shows, among other instances, that the 
leaven was at work. 

In the autumn of 1799, a young man recently 



The Awakening: Moderation. 35 

graduated from Yale was settled as minister in 
the Presbyterian Church at East Hampton, Long 
Island. His observations, during a pastorate of 
eleven years at this place, prepared him to become, 
later, the commanding figure in the early temper- 
ance warfare. The Montauk Indians lived near 
East Hampton, wild tribes who for a hundred 
years "had resisted such efforts as were made for 
their evangelization, and yielded, alas ! only to 
those which tended to degrade and destroy them." 
"There was a grogseller in our neighborhood," he 
wrote afterward, "who drank himself and cor- 
rupted others. He always kept his jug under the 
bed to drink in the night, till he was choked off 
by death. He would go down with his barrel of 
whisky in a wagon to the Indians and get them 
tipsy and bring them in debt ; he would get all their 
corn and bring it back in his wagon — in fact, he 
stripped them. Then, in winter, they must come 
up twenty miles, buy their own corn, and pack it 
home on their shoulders, or starve. O ! it was hor- 
rible, horrible ! It burned and burned in my mind, 
and I swore a deep oath in my mind that it should 
not be -so." At about this time, too, Dr. Kush's 



36 A Century of Drink Keform. 

essay fell into his hands. We shall hear of this 
young man again. His name is Lyman Beecher — 
destined to make the name famous. 

In union there is strength — strength in the con- 
fidence and courage it gives the individual better 
to defy the customs and prejudices of a people; 
strength in conserving views thus held in common, 
and greater effectiveness in the propagation of 
those views. Soon after entering the new century 
we find the first attempts to promote temperance 
by organized effort. The first efforts in this direc- 
tion were by no means uniform or thoroughgoing. 
All was yet crudest experiment. Man had not the 
light of experience to guide him. That something 
must be done, they agreed. They saw as through 
a glass darkly, and felt their way. The first soci- 
eties were largely moderation societies simply. 
]\Ien were aiming not so much at drinking as at 
drunkenness, and members of the early temperance 
societies were pledged generally against the excess- 
ive use of spirits, and in social visits, perhaps, to 
decline them as far as possible. Drunkenness was 
punished either with a fine, or by being compelled 
to treat all around. In one instance, after signing 



The Awakening: Moderation. 37 

the constitution, the members all took a drink at 
the tavern bar, where the society was organized, to 
show the world an example of true moderation. 

One of the first distinctive temperance societies 
was the one formed at Moreau, in Saratoga County, 
New York, in 1808. This was a country place de- 
voted to lumbering, with its strong temptations to 
drinking. Deeply stirred, an intrepid young phy- 
sician, Billy J. Clark, in co-operation with the 
Congregational minister, Lebbeus Armstrong, took 
the initiative in this move for the community's 
redemption. Forty-seven signed the constitution 
of the temperance society, pledged to abstain from 
the use of ardent spirits and wine, except in case 
of sickness, also excepting wine at public dinners 
and at communion. For breaking this rule a fine 
of twenty-five cents was imposed, and for actual 
intoxication a fine of fifty cents. Dr. Benjamin 
Rush was made an honorary member of the soci- 
ety — an evidence of indebtedness to his labors. 

Voices are now beginning to be heard from the 
pulpit. Rotable among these is a sermon by Rev. 
Ebenezer Porter, Congregational minister at Wash- 
ington, Connecticut, who was later called to a pro- 



38 A Century of Drink Reform. 

f essorship at Andover Theological Seminary. This 
sermon was preached in the winter of 1805-6, the 
occasion that drew it forth being a man found dead 
in the snow, with a bottle of spirits in his pocket. 
The sermon gave statistics on the extent of the con- 
sumption of strong drink, and its attendant evils. 
It warned against excessive drinking; cautioned 
parents against the free use of spirits in the home, 
and in general called upon men to have a care. 
The sermon awakened inquiry, and a little later 
was called for in pamphlet form, and circulated as 
a tract. In 1810, Rev. Heman Humphrey, of Fair- 
field, Connecticut, afterwards the president of Am- 
herst College, preached a series of six sermons on 
the subject of intemperance, which are believed to 
be the first series ever given on this theme. The 
same year, Jeremiah Evarts (father of a famous 
son, William M. Evarts) began to call attention 
to the evils of intemperance in the columns of the 
Panoplist and Missionary Magazine, of which he 
was the editor. Rev. Roswell Swan, of Norwalk, 
and Rev. Calvin Chapin, of Rocky Hill, Connect- 
icut, whose voice was also heard soon after this, 
were among the very first to advocate entire absti- 



The Awakening: Moderation. 39 

nence from spirits as the only remedy for intem- 
perance. 

The year 1811 is an important date in the his- 
tory of the temperance movement. The question 
of intemperance was now to be taken up by the 
Churches, and to form henceforth the theme of 
discussion in ecclesiastical meetings. The immedi- 
ate agency in bringing this about was, again, Dr. 
Benjamin Rush. At the regular session of the 
General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, 
convened in Philadelphia in May of that year, Dr. 
Rush presented that body with one thousand copies 
of his essay on ardent spirits, which had already 
passed through several editions. He made an ear- 
nest appeal for some action by the Assembly, and 
induced that body to appoint a committee to devise 
measures for combating the prevailing intemper- 
ance, the committee to report at the next annual 
meeting. The committee thus appointed visited, 
or corresponded with, the General Associations of 
Congregational Churches in the different New Eng- 
land States that summer and fall, and secured the 
appointment of like committees by each, to make a 
similar report at their respective ecclesiastical 



40 A Century of Drink Reform. 

gatherings the following year. Thus did this fa- 
mous Philadelphia physician and citizen, on the 
eve of his going hence (he died within two years), 
render effectual the labors of his life, and launch 
a cause freighted with untold blessings to mankind. 

The Committee on Temperance appointed by 
the Assembly the preceding year made a compre- 
hensive report to the Presbyterian General Assem- 
bly of 1812. The report did not explicitly recom- 
mend entire abstinence, but came close to it. Min- 
isters were urged to warn their members and hear- 
ers "not only against actual intemperance, but 
against all those habits and indulgences which may 
have a tendency to produce it," and by sermons, 
addresses, and tracts to create public sentiment, 
"or a suitable impression against the use of ardent 
spirits." In 1818 the General Assembly declared 
against the custom of treating, "except in extraor- 
dinary cases," and planted itself on the principle 
that men ought to abstain from the common use of 
ardent spirits. 

A perceptible influence became manifest in the 
Methodist Church also at this time. The practice 
of this Church with respect to temperance had 



The Awakening: Moderation. 41 

steadily declined for more than two decades, until 
now it had reached its lowest level. Drinking had 
become quite general among its members, and was 
not infrequent among its clergy ; while many mem- 
bers, and not a few preachers, were among those 
who dealt in ardent spirits. The year 1812 marks 
the turning point from this condition. The Gen- 
eral Conference of that year — the first representa- 
tive or delegated General Conference — took up the 
subject in an address to the Church. "It is with 
regret that we have seen the use of ardent spirits, 
dram-drinking, etc., so common among the Meth- 
odists. AVe have endeavored to suppress the prac- 
tice by our example, but it is necessary that we add 
precept to example. And we really think it not 
consistent with the character of a Christian to be 
immersed in the practice of distilling or retailing 
an article so destructive to the morals of society, 
and we do most earnestly recommend the Annual 
Conferences and our people to join with us in mak- 
ing a firm and constant stand against the evil which 
has ruined thousands both in time and in eternity.'' 
At subsequent quadrennial Conferences the subject 
was constantly agitated, conspicuously by the ener- 



42 A Cejsttuey of Dehstk Reform. 

getic Rev. James Axley, and the Discipline became 
gradually more stringent. 

A tremor was felt in other bodies also. But 
the developments of chiefest importance were those 
among the Congregational Churches in Connecticut 
and in Massachusetts. The General Association 
of Connecticut met in June of 1812 at Sharon. A 
committee of three on Temperance, appointed the 
year before upon overtures by the committee of the 
Presbyterian General Assembly already mentioned, 
brought in its report. Deploring the widespread 
evils of intemperance, the committee confessed that 
after the most prayerful consideration they did not 
see that anything could be done. Whereupon Eev. 
Lyman Beecher, recently settled at Litchfield, rose 
instantly to his feet, moved that the committee be 
discharged, and another committee of three be ap- 
pointed, to report at that same meeting the ways 
and means of arresting the tide of intemperance. 
Beecher, as chairman, brought in a report the next 
day — the most important paper, he says after- 
wards, that he ever wrote. It recommended — 

1. Sermons on the subject by all ministers of 
the Association. 



The Awakening: Moderation. 43 

2. That District Associations put away spirit- 
uous liquors from ecclesiastical meetings. 

3. That Church members abstain from unlaw- 
ful vending, or from purchase and use when unlaw- 
fully vended ; and to cease using spirits as a means 
of hospitality. 

4. That parents cease from the ordinary use 
of ardent spirits in the family, and warn their chil- 
dren against the dangers of intemperance. 

5. That farmers and mechanics and manufac- 
turers substitute palatable and nutritious drinks, 
and give additional compensation, if necessary, to 
their employees. 

6. To circulate documents on the subject, espe- 
cially a sermon by Rev. Ebenezer Porter, and Dr. 
Rush's essay. 

7. To form voluntary associations to aid civil 
magistrates in the execution of the law. 

The report called upon the Association "most 
earnestly to entreat their brethren in the ministry, 
the members of our Churches, and the persons who 
lament and desire to check the progress of this evil, 
that they neither express nor indulge the melan- 
choly apprehension that nothing can be done on 



44 A Century of Drink Reform. 

this subject, a prediction eminently calculated to 
paralyze exertion, and to become the disastrous 
cause of its own fulfillment." Such spirit had in 
it an augury of a better day. "Our cause is indeed 
an evil one, but not hopeless." The report, after a 
discussion of unwonted zeal and earnestness, was 
adopted, and a thousand copies were ordered to be 
printed. 

At the next year's Association the reports were 
most encouraging. Spirits had been banished from 
ecclesiastical meetings ; ministers had preached, 
and Churches generally approved; the use of spir- 
its in the family had diminished ; the attention of 
the community was awakened, and the current of 
public opinion was beginning to turn; a "Society 
for the Reformation of Morals" had been organ- 
ized, and ecclesiastical bodies in other States had 
commenced efforts against the common enemy. 

Chief among the last named bodies was the 
General Association of Massachusetts. Here too 
a temperance committee had been appointed at the 
meeting in 1811, with Rev. Samuel Worcester, of 
Salem, as chairman. After several meetings and 
conferences with others, an organization was ef- 



The Awakening: Moderation. 45 

fected, in February, 1813, called "The Massachu- 
setts Society for the Suppression of Intemper- 
ance/' Its object was "to discountenance and sup- 
press the too free use of ardent spirits and its kin- 
dred vices, prof aneness and gaming ; and to encour- 
age and promote temperance and general moral- 
ity/' Hon. Samuel Dexter, a distinguished Bos- 
ton lawyer, who had been both Secretary of the 
Treasury and Secretary of War in Adams's Cab- 
inet, was elected president of the society. This 
organization, if not the most advanced in its prin- 
ciples, was yet the largest and most important soci- 
ety that had thus far been brought into being. At 
each annual meeting a sermon dealing with intem- 
perance was preached by some well-known clergy- 
man. In the third annual report, for the year 
1815, thirty-three societies were reported organized 
in the different parts of the Commonwealth, auxil- 
iary to this parent society. 

During the next ten years the leaven was work- 
ing on, slowly on the whole, but surely. Xo dis- 
tinct or notable achievement is recorded for these 
years in the temperance reform. The War of 1812 
had brought its distracting influence, while the 



46 A Centuey of Drink Reform. 

Congregational Churches in New England, from 
whose ranks the chief impulse to early temperance 
came, were absorbed, since 1815, in a spirited 
controversy over Unitarianism. Sermons on tem- 
perance, however, became more frequent, and local 
temperance societies slowly multipled, with rules 
varying in scope and strictness. Here and there 
a Church was beginning to refuse membership to 
any who used or dealt in spirits. The press, too, 
was now and then clearing its throat as if to speak. 
Among the publications of this time was a pam- 
phlet or book by Eev. Mason L. Weems, late rector 
of General Washington's parish, and author of a 
"Life of Washington." By 1818 it had passed 
through six editions in as many years. Its title 
was "The Drunkard's Looking Glass," "wherein 
the American youth may behold a most terrific yet 
true picture of that monster vice, which every year 
swallows up more precious life, property, and char- 
acter in the United States than do the Trench, the 
British, the yellow fever, and all our enemies (pub- 
lic and private) put together." 

Another pamphlet was in the form of an ad- 
dress to the people of the United States, "The In- 



The Awakening : Modekation. 47 

tellectual Torch/ 5 by Dr. Jesse Torrey, Jr., which 
developed an original plan for the dissemination 
of knowledge and virtue by means of free public 
libraries. " While in health taste not a single drop 
of ardent spirits/' it urged in a chapter on strong 
drink. The author circulated petitions to the Presi- 
dent and to Congress, to provide legislation for 
this purpose ; and for the purpose of discouraging 
intemperance to levy a tax of fifty cents a gallon 
upon native spirits, and of one dollar upon wines 
and spirits imported. Mr. Weems, in his pam- 
phlet just quoted, in addition to more religious 
training, also advocates taxation. So specious is 
this taxation argument that it has not failed to cap- 
tivate and carry away even the very elect. Could 
a heavy tax but be laid on the twenty-five million 
gallons of spirits distilled annually in the United 
States, so it was argued by Weems, what a revenue 
"to scatter in blessings through the land, improv- 
ing the canals and roads, encouraging the arts and 
sciences, multiplying churches and free schools, 
and thus rendering our country the delight and 
glory of the earth I" The fallacy and mischief of 
this policy as a temperance measure was to be 



48 A Centuey of Drink Reform. 

amply demonstrated when, in the later stages of 
the ref orm, it was put into actual operation. 

A pioneer work in every reform is the gather- 
ing of facts. It is facts alone which can break 
down the barriers of custom and prejudice. All 
theories and notions and philosophies must give 
way before facts. In the use of this method of 
presenting facts and actual results, and of drawing 
logical, masterful deductions therefrom, no man 
exceeded, or perhaps equaled, the Rev. Justin Ed- 
wards, of Andover, Massachusetts. It was he who 
was to give the chief impetus in starting the tem- 
perance reform upon a new epoch presently. In 
1825 appeared a pamphlet by Dr. Edwards, en- 
titled, "The Well-conducted Farm." This was 
widely circulated as a tract — No. 176, in the Amer- 
ican Tract Society's series. It gave the results of 
the banishment of strong drink from the extensive 
farming establishment of S. V. S. Wilder, Esq., 
at Bolton, in Worcester County. The advantages 
accruing to the workmen from the practice of absti- 
nence were shown to have been : better appetite for 
food, with greater vigor of body and mind; they 
were freer from sickness, doing more work and 



The Awakestixg: Moderation. 49 

with greater ease; accumulating more property, 
happier. The advantages to the employer were: 
the men did more work, and did it better ; the prem- 
ises were kept in better repair, and things were in 
their place; the farm was better worked, and the 
crops gathered in better season ; the dumb animals, 
under kinder treatment, were more gentle ; the men 
were more respectful in deportment, more con- 
tented, more interested in religion and in the wel- 
fare of all about them. It was then pointed out 
what beneficial results would follow if the prin- 
ciple of abstinence were adopted throughout the 
country. 

At this point, where the twilight of the old 
passes over into the dawn of a new day, stand the 
famous Six Sermons by Rev. Lyman Beecher. 
They were preached during the last year of 
Beecher's pastorate at Litchfield, in 1825, and were 
repeated soon after his settlement in the Hanover 
Street Church in Boston, where he went in March, 
1826. The immediate occasion that drew them 
forth was a convert's relapse on strong drink at a 
country place, called Bradleysville, about four 
miles out from Litchfield. Beecher used to preach 
4 



50 A Century of Drink Reform. 

there on Sunday afternoons, and on the occasion of 
this visit there he found the young man in bed, 
and his wife weeping. He took in the situation at 
once, and riding home said to himself, "It is now 
or never." He immediately worked out six ser- 
mons "on the Nature, Occasions, Signs, Evils, and 
Remedy of Intemperance," which were printed in 
a year or two, then translated into several tongues, 
and circulated over the face of the earth. They did 
more than any other single similar agency in cre- 
ating a distinct temperance sentiment, and for 
years afterwards were looked upon as the standard 
authority on this subject. 

Beecher's language is unequivocal. "The time 
is not distant, we trust, when the use of ardent 
spirits will be proscribed by a vote of all the 
Churches in our land, and the commerce in that 
article shall, equally with the slave-trade, be re- 
garded as inconsistent with a creditable profession 
of Christianity." He had a profound grasp of 
the subject, and recognized far in advance some 
of the later real difficulties of the problem. Spread 
information, he urges, concerning the effects of 
spirits, and form voluntary associations for absti- 



The Awakening: Moderation. 51 

nence. Yet these will not prove sufficient. Some- 
thing more than knowledge or argument will be 
needed; thirst and the love of filthy lucre are in- 
corrigible. The disease is deep-seated. There is 
somewhere a mighty energy of evil at work in the 
production of intemperance. Intemperance in our 
land is not accidental; it is rolling in upon us by 
the violation of some great laws of human nature. 
The remedy must lie in the application of correct 
principles, and must be universal, national. What 
is this remedy? "It is the banishment of ardent 
spirits from the list of lawful articles of commerce 
by a correct and efficient public sentiment, such 
as has turned slavery out of half our land, and 
will yet expel it from the world." 

And the evening and the morning were the first 
day. 



(II.) 

CHAPTER II. 

Progression : Abstinence. 
1826-1851. 

First Period: 1826-1836. Abstinence from Spirits. 

On February 13, 1826, "The American Society 
for the Promotion of Temperance" was formed in 
Boston. This marks a new epoch in the reform. 
The hapless, unf ruitful labors of the years previous 
had taught their lesson. Out of the varied experi- 
menting one conclusion was beginning to stand out 
with growing clearness; namely, that the only 
practical, effective remedy for intemperance is en- 
tire abstinence. The philosophy of moderation was 
daily demonstrating its failure. Temperance men 
had hitherto sought, for the most part, to regulate 
the use of strong drink, not to abolish it. They had 
bewailed the effect, yet perpetuated the cause. 
While one reformed drunkard was being saved, 
their own habits, if followed by others, would make 

twenty more. 

52 



Progression : Abstinence. 53 

Consequently, in spite of all pledges and labors 
of moderation, intemperance went on apace. 3STot 
that men wanted to be drunken, or did not recog- 
nize the voice of reason, but because there is some- 
thing in the very nature of strong drink that leads 
to excess. A little drinking tempts to more drink- 
ing, which men can not or do not resist ; which re- 
sults in intoxication; which tends to repeat itself; 
which ends in confirmed drunkenness. Men were 
thus beginning to see that to combat drunkenness 
efforts must be directed against the habit of drink- 
ing itself, the root "from which this upas-tree 
springs." But to bring about such a change in 
public sentiment and custom demanded larger 
plans and means of work than had yet been em- 
ployed. After prayer and consultation on this sub- 
ject, by a few earnest men, a- conference was called 
of representatives of the various Christian denomi- 
nations, to meet in Boston on January 10, 1826. 
At this meeting it was resolved that systematic and 
vigorous efforts on a larger scale be put forth, com- 
mensurate with the evil, and continued until it is 
eradicated ; that to this end an American Temper- 
ance Society be organized, and a permanent sal- 



54 A Centuey of Dkink Refokm. 

aried agent employed to give his entire time to the 
work. At an adjourned meeting, on February 
13th, a constitution was adopted, and the follow- 
ing persons were chosen by the members of the 
meeting to constitute the Society: Rev. Leonard 
Woods, Rev. William Jenks, Rev. Justin Edwards, 
Rev. Warren Fay, Rev. Benjamin B. Wisner, Rev. 
Francis Wayland, Rev. Timothy Merritt, Hon. 
Marcus Morton, Hon. Samuel Hubbard, Hon. Wil- 
liam Reed, Hon. George Odiorne, John Tappan, 
Esq., William Ropes, Esq., S. V. S. Wilder, Esq., 
James P. Chaplin, M. D., and Enoch Hale, M. D. 
At its first meeting, the Society elected Hon. Mar- 
cus Morton as its president, and Leonard Woods, 
Justin Edwards, John Tappan, George Odiorne, 
and S. V. S. Wilder as the Executive Committee. 
At the second meeting eighty-four men from the 
Middle and Northern States were chosen as addi- 
tional members of the Society. 

Though the basis of this Society was really 
entire abstinence from ardent spirits, it was not 
explicitly so stated at first in the constitution, nor 
was it exacted as a pledge, for motives of pru- 
dence, doubtless. The original object, as stated 



Progression: Abstinence. 55 

in the constitution, was "to produce such a change 
of public sentiment, and such a renovation of the 
habits of individuals and the customs of the com- 
munity, that in the end temperance, with all its 
attendant blessings, may universally prevail." To 
accomplish this object, one of the modes of oper- 
ation proposed was "to do whatever is practicable 
and expedient toward the forming of voluntary 
associations, for the purpose of promoting the ends 
of the Society." The first such association, or 
temperance society, however, planted itself 
squarely on entire abstinence. This was the soci- 
ety at Andover, the home of Justin Edwards, 
organized on September 1st of that same year. 
Entire abstinence became thenceforward the ac- 
cepted principle of societies that were later formed 
under the auspices of this parent Society. The 
Massachusetts Society for the Suppression of In- 
temperance, which since its organization in 1813 
had stood upon a platform of moderation, and 
whose work had for a number of years languished, 
in November, 1827, recommended the practice o£ 
entire abstinence, making it a few years later a 
part of its constitution. 



56 A Century of Drink Reform. 

The first permanent general agent of the Amer- 
ican Temperance Society was Rev. Nathaniel 
Hewit, of Fairfield, Connecticut. Hewit was a 
man of great power over an audience, and was 
already known to have preached with effect on the 
subject of temperance. During his three years' 
service he visited the ISTew England and many of 
the Middle and Southern States, addressing 
Churches, conferences, ecclesiastical and other 
bodies. He wrought effectually in those pioneer 
days, and has been called the Luther of the early 
temperance reform. Under the general agent, 
State and district agents were appointed. The 
work grew, and societies sprang up everywhere. 

The labors of the American Temperance Soci- 
ety were powerfully re-enforced by addresses and 
publications of various kinds. Early in 1828, 
Rev. Calvin Chapin had begun, with caustic pen, 
a series of thirty-three articles in the Connecticut 
Observer, on "The Only Infallible Antidote" — 
entire abstinence, the truth of which was strik- 
ingly illustrated. On March 4th, the same year, 
less than a month after the American Temperance 
Society was organized, there appeared in Boston 



Progression : Abstinence. 57 

the first paper ever established to advocate entire 
abstinence, The National Philanthropist. It was 
founded by Rev. William Collier, a Baptist min- 
ister, a graduate of Brown University. Its motto 
was, Temperate drinking is the down-hill road 
to drunkenness. After the second month it be- 
came a regular weekly paper. A few years later 
it was edited for a time by William Lloyd Garri- 
son, who wrote: "When this paper was first pro- 
posed it met with a repulsion which would have 
utterly discouraged a less zealous and persevering 
man than our predecessor. The moralist looked 
on doubtfully; the whole community esteemed the 
enterprise desperate. By extraordinary efforts 
and under appalling disadvantages the first num- 
ber was given to the public, and since that time it 
has gradually expanded in size and increased in 
circulation till doubt and prejudice and ridicule 
have been swept away." That a paper directly 
devoted to temperance might become a power in 
the reform had evidently not occurred to the 
people. 

Early in 1827 the country was stirred by an 
address given at Lyme, New Hampshire, on Janu- 



58 A Century of Drink Reform. 

ary 8th, by Jonathan Kittredge, one of the ablest 
lawyers and jurists of his generation. It was a 
fearful indictment of moderate drinking, and cre- 
ated a great sensation. He speaks thus : "But we 
are apt to think that the wretches whom we see 
and have described were always so; that theyivere 
out of miserable and degraded families; and that 
they are walking in the road in which they were 
born. But this is not so. Among the number may 
be found a large proportion who were as lovely in 
their infancy, as promising in their youth, and 
as useful in early life, as your own children, and 
have become drunkards — I repeat it, and let it 
never be forgotten — have become drunkards by 
the temperate, moderate, and habitual use of ar- 
dent spirits, just as you use them now. Were it 
not for this use of ardent spirits, we should not 
now hear of drunken senators and drunken magis- 
trates, of drunken lawyers and drunken doctors; 
Churches would not now be mourning over 
drunken ministers and drunken members ; parents 
would not now be weeping over drunken children, 
wives over drunken husbands, husbands over 
drunken wives, and angels over a drunken world. 
"He who advises men not to drink to excess 



Progression : Abstinence. 59 

may lop off the branches; he who advises them 
to drink only on certain occasions may fell the 
trunk; but he who tells them not to drink at all 
strikes and digs deep for the roots of the hideous 
vice of intemperance; and this is the only course 
to pursue. . . . Let those who can not be re- 
claimed go to ruin, and the quicker the better if 
you regard only the public good ; but save the rest 
of our population ; save yourselves ; save your chil- 
dren! Raise not up an army of drunkards to 
supply their places ! Purify your houses ! They 
contain the plague of death — the poison that in a 
few years will render some of your little ones what 
the miserable wretches that you see staggering the 
streets are now. ... As long as you keep ar- 
dent spirits in your houses, as long as you drink 
it yourselves, as long as it is polite and genteel 
to sip the intoxicating bowl, so long society will 
remain just what it is now and so long drunkards 
will spring from your loins, and so long drunkards 
will wear your names to future generations. And 
there is no way given under heaven whereby man 
can be saved from the vice of intemperance but 
that of total abstinence." 



60 A Century of Drink Reform. 

This address was issued by the American 
Tract Society as No. 221 in their series, and was 
spread abroad by the hundred thousands. A little 
later, the same year, came the famous address by 
Reuben D. Mussey, Professor of Anatomy and 
Surgery at Dartmouth, before the New Hamp- 
shire Medical Society, of which he was president. 
This address, too, insisting that spirits are not 
essential to health, or indispensable even in medi- 
cine, was widely read, and made a deep impres- 
sion. About this time also, Beecher's Six Ser- 
mons appeared in print, and entered upon their 
w T orld-wide mission. Among the other effective 
publications during the first five years following 
the formation of the American Temperance Soci- 
ety were : "Discourses on Intemperance," by Rev. 
John Palfrey, of Boston; "Effects of Spirituous 
Liquors on Society," by S. Emlen, M. D., of 
Philadelphia; "Twelve Essays on Intemperance," 
by Rev. Albert Barnes, of Morristown, New Jer- 
sey, later of Philadelphia; a masterly "Parallel 
between Intemperance and the Slave Trade," by 
Heman Humphrey, D. D., President of Amherst; 
"Putnam and the Wolf," an address by Rev. John 



Progression : Abstinence. 61 

Marsh, of Haddam, Connecticut, given at Pom- 
fret, where the famous hunt by this Revolutionary 
hero took place; Professor Edward Hitchcock's 
" Argument against the Manufacture of Spirits/' 
and "Prize Essay on Alcoholic and IsTarcotic Sub- 
stances;" Frofessor Moses Stuart's prize essay 
on the subject, "Is the Use of Distilled Liquors 
and the Traffic in Them at Present Compatible 
with a Profession of the Christian Religion?" 
Addresses by Dr. Thomas Sewall in Washington, 
General Lewis Cass in Detroit, and Rev. Mr. Mc- 
Ilvaine in Brooklyn; lastly, the Annual Reports 
of the American Temperance Society. 

At the opening of the '30's the Churches had 
largely planted themselves on the principle of en- 
tire abstinence. The General Assembly of the 
Presbyterian Church, on an awakening conscience, 
had appointed the fourth Thursday of January, 
1829, as a day of fasting and prayer, which was 
generally observed, even outside that denomina- 
tion. The House of Representatives of the K"ew 
York Legislature adjourned for that day, to attend 
worship in a body, in the city of Albany. Exten- 
sive revivals of religion followed. This was in 



62 A Century of Deink Eeform. 

fact true wherever temperance activity had made 
itself felt. Merchants gave up the sale of ardent 
spirits in their stores, distillers and retailers aban- 
doned the business entirely, under the stress of 
moral conviction. Young men who could be in- 
duced to abandon the cup were more easily brought 
under the influence of religion. So manifestly 
was this the case everywhere that the temperance 
reformation came to be called the John the Baptist 
of the Gospel. 

A large service was rendered to temperance, 
particularly in his own denomination, by Wilbur 
risk, one of the best educated and strongest 
preachers in the Methodist Church in his day. He 
threw himself into the temperance movement at 
the very commencement of this epoch, and gave 
his active support to the American Temperance 
Society when his denomination yet stood aloof. 
In his persistent effort to free the Methodist 
Church from the venders of ardent spirits, he en- 
countered no little hostility, and persecution even, 
but he won out. In 1832 he sent out his " Address 
to the members of the Methodist Church on the 
subject of Temperance," to induce those who still 



Progression : Abstinence. 63 

refused to come over to abandon the business. 
"The Christian's dramshop ! Sound it to your- 
self/' he protests, in mingled indignation and ap- 
peal. Two years before this he had been elected 
president of Wesley an University, just established 
at Middletown, Connecticut — the first president 
of this first Methodist university. 

Many college presidents entered actively into 
the early reform. There were, Francis Wayland, 
of Brown University; Eliphalet Nott, of Union 
College; Heman Humphrey, of Amherst; Mark 
Hopkins, of Williams; Jesse Appleton, of Bow- 
doin ; Nathan Lord, of Dartmouth ; and Jeremiah 
Day, of Yale. Of these Heman Humphrey was the 
first to advocate entire abstinence, years before 
the American Temperance Society was formed. 
Eliphalet Nott became a zealous temperance ad- 
vocate contemporaneous with the organization of 
that Society. Both as an educator and a pulpit 
orator ~Nott was unsurpassed. In July, 1804, 
upon invitation by the Common Council of Al- 
bany, where he served as pastor, he preached a 
memorial discourse upon the death of Alexander 
Hamilton, a personal friend and a frequent at- 



64 A Century of Drink Reform. 

tendant at his Church. The discourse became fa- 
mous, being, in the language of a contemporary 
journalist, "one of the most eloquent and highly 
finished productions of the kind which this coun- 
try has produced." This same year Dr. Nott was 
called to the presidency of Union College at 
Schenectady, then in its infancy ; in which capac- 
ity he served an unprecedented term of sixty-two 
years — a man of wide and varied learning, the 
oracle of student and of statesman, conspicuous 
early advocate of the temperance and anti-slavery 
reforms. In the terrific and telling vividness with 
which he pictured the evils of intemperance he 
was excelled by no man. 

With such men leading, or lending their aid 
to the reform; with Churches standing on absti- 
nence, or coming over, and medical societies de- 
claring for it; with thousands abandoning the 
traffic in ardent spirits before the sweep of a 
mighty conviction, and many more thousands, by 
their practice of abstinence, putting to shame the 
argument that strong drink makes men strong, 
and is essential to health — the temperance move- 
ment was bound to grow, and presently to become 



Progression : Abstinence. 65 

irresistible. Already Europe, looking on from 
across the water, had caught the inspiration. In 
Ireland, Rev. John Edgar, a Presbyterian min- 
ister and Professor of Divinity at Belfast Col- 
lege, became the leader of the movement. Having 
been in communication with the friends of tem- 
perance in America, he published an article in 
the Belfast News-Letter, August 14, 1829, point- 
ing out the need for temperance work in Ireland. 
This is the first appeal made on this subject to 
the Christian conscience of Europe. Soon after 
this appeal, the first temperance society in Ireland 
was started at Newross by Kev. George W. Carr. 
The movement then began to spread. Almost si- 
multaneously, in Scotland, Mr. John Dunlop, a 
Greenock squire, who had studied the American 
temperance societies, and had become deeply im- 
pressed with the evils that flowed from the Scotch- 
man's love of whisky, formed a society at Green- 
ock, in October, 1829. Dunlop lectured in Edin- 
burgh and other cities, and everywhere temper- 
ance societies sprang up. Erom here the move- 
ment spread to England. Mr. Henry Forbes, a 
merchant from Bradford, in Yorkshire, on a busi- 
5 



66 A Century of Drink Reform. 

ness trip to Glasgow attended the public meetings 
of the temperance societies there. He became 
convinced of the necessity and worth of temper- 
ance reform and after his return he organized, on 
February 2, 1830, the Bradford Temperance So- 
ciety, the first in England. Societies were formed 
during the same year in Manchester, Liverpool, 
Leeds, and other of the larger cities of England, 
the reform entering London the following year, 
in the formation of the London Temperance Soci- 
ety in June, 1831. 

In Sweden, also, it was heard that temperance 
societies had been established in America, and 
were working such good results. The Royal Swed- 
ish Patriotic Society at Stockholm became inter- 
ested, and instructed their secretary, in .May, 
1830, to open communication with a view to ascer- 
taining the plan of organization and work of these 
societies. Early in 1831 the first temperance soci- 
ety was formed, in Stockholm. 

In the United States the years from 1831 to 
1836 were most fruitful in the reform. The 
movement was getting under way and gathering 
momentum. First among the many agencies that 



Pbogkession : Abstinence. 67 

gave it impulse was the Rev. Justin Edwards, 
who, as corresponding secretary of the American 
Temperance Society during these years, became 
the chief promoter of organized temperance in 
America. As a discerning thinker, efficient organ- 
izer, and wise leader, Dr. Edwards was the ablest 
man at this early stage of the reform. More than 
any other he had been instrumental in the forma- 
tion of the American Temperance Society, in col- 
lecting funds for the employment of a general 
agent, and in promoting in other ways, in the be- 
ginning, the cause of that organization. Upon 
the resignation of Rev. iSTathaniel Hewit, at the 
close of 1830, as general agent of the Society, Dr. 
Edwards assumed the chief labors of that office, 
visiting many States, including the Province of 
!N"ew Brunswick in Canada, and everywhere or- 
ganizing temperance societies. 

The publications during these years were nu- 
merous. It was the golden age of temperance lit- 
erature. The public lyceums, for discussions, de- 
bates, and lectures, which originated in Massa- 
chusetts in 1826-28, and spread presently through 
the land, were giving publicity and aid to the re- 



68 A Century of Drink Reform. 

form. Temperance newspapers were growing in 
numbers and influence. In the form of tract or 
pamphlet, the press was sending forth by the mil- 
lion copies such writings as these: Poems and 
Tales by Mrs. Sigourney ; Addresses by Rev. Aus- 
tin Dickinson; "Who Slew All These?" by Mrs. 
Halsey, circulated by the hundred thousands; the 
Ox Sermon — from Exodus xxi, 28, 29 — by Rev. 
Eli Merrill, of which two million copies circu- 
lated in 1833; Address by President Henian 
Humphrey, on "The Dialogue between the Rum- 
seller and His Conscience ;" "The Burning of the 
Ephesian Books," by Rev. John Pierpont, the 
fearless, resolute Boston Unitarian minister and 
poet, so valiant in the reform; Sermons by Rev. 
E. N. Kirk, of Albany, later of Boston, one of the 
most powerful preachers of his day ; "The Immor- 
ality of the Traffic in Ardent Spirits," by Rev. 
Albert Barnes, of Philadelphia; Essays by Hon. 
Mark Doolittle, of New Hampshire, and by Dr. 
Harvey Lindley, of Washington; and lastly, and 
perhaps most effective of all, the Temperance 
Tales by Sargent. Lucius M. Sargent was a col- 
lege graduate, trained for the law, but having 



Progression : Abstinence. 69 

money resources and literary tastes he devoted 
himself to the temperance reform. His Tales, be- 
ginning in 1833 with "My Mother's Gold King," 
came forth in numbered succession, a score of 
them in the space of a few years. Dr. Charles 
Jewett, who entered the reform at the close of the 
'30's, wrote afterwards that if all opposition to 
the liquor system could by one blow be annihi- 
lated, and with it all temperance men and women 
then living, together with every publication or 
instrumentality that had ever assailed the system, 
saving only from the wreck Lyman Beecher's Six 
Sermons, Sargent's Tales, and a The Rum Fiend," 
a poem by William H. Burleigh, a few years 
later, — these alone ought, among any civilized 
people who can read, to originate another temper- 
ance reform, and carry it to a consummation. 

Of all the publications the greatest excitement 
was aroused by "Deacon Amos Giles's Distillery: 
A Dream," by Rev. George B. Cheever, of Salem, 
Massachusetts, a college classmate of Hawthorne 
and of Longfellow. This publicity was due partly 
to the document itself, but more largely probably 
to the fact that its author, because of it, became 



70 A Century of Drink Eeform. 

a kind of martyr to the cause. In this town, 
where Cheever had settled, there were four dis- 
tilleries whose lurid flames burned day and night, 
week-day and Sabbath, pouring forth desolation 
upon the community. Within a few minutes walk 
from the minister's study was a workhouse, of 
whose three thousand inmates the vast proportion 
were there, directly or indirectly, owing to intem- 
perance. Over these evils and Sabbath desecra- 
tions this young minister could not sleep. When 
he lay down it was only to dream, which in this 
instance proved to be not all a dream. His mind 
having in its waking hours stored up the visual 
impression, "Inquire at So-and-So's," seen in fa- 
miliar advertisements, mingled this in strange in- 
congruity in his dream. Imps had entered by 
night, so he dreamed, into the distillery of one 
Amos Giles, a deacon, who also kept Bibles for 
sale in one corner of his establishment, and in their 
fiendish revelry had painted signs on the casks, 
reading on this w T ise : "Who hath woe ? Inquire 
at Deacon Giles's Distillery. Delirium Tremens ? 
Inquire at Deacon Giles's Distillery. Insanity 
and Murder? Inquire at Deacon Giles's Distil- 



Progression : Abstinence. 71 

lery," etc. These letters were invisible to the 
distiller, but flamed out in letters of red as the 
retailer was about to deal out the contents. This 
Dream was first published in the Salem Land- 
mark, in February, 1835. Cheever was arrested 
for libel by one of the distillers of the town, whom 
the coat seemed to fit best, and although Cheever 
was defended by Eufus Choate, he was punished 
with a fine and with imprisonment at thirty days. 
This gave the widest publicity to the article, and 
was the means, by the sentiment it created, of 
closing the distillery. The gods were seemingly 
on the side of the reform, for they first made the 
distiller mad. 

So much for the literature of these years, from 
1831-1836, the .second five years since the forma- 
tion of the American Temperance Society. We 
will now note briefly the events of progress during 
these same years. In the fifth Annual Report of 
the American Temperance Society, in 1832, the 
following figures are given, according to the best 
information then obtainable: More than 1,500,000 
people in the United States abstain from ardent 
spirits, and from furnishing it; more than 4,000 



72 A Century of Drink Reform. 

temperance societies are in existence, with more 
than 500,000 members; more than 1,500 distil- 
leries have stopped, and more than 4,000 grocers 
have ceased selling; 4,500 drunkards have ceased 
using spirits, and many thousands have united 
with Churches as the result of giving up drinking. 
Every State has a State temperance society, ex- 
cept three. Temperance societies have been intro- 
duced into various parts of Africa, and into the 
Sandwich Islands. 

In the fall of the same year, November 5, 
1832, an order was issued by General Lewis Cass, 
the Secretary of War, banishing the spirit ration 
from the army, and prohibiting the introduction 
of spirituous liquors into any camp, fort, or garri- 
son of the United States. The Secretary of the 
Navy bore testimony to the evils of strong drink 
in the service, and offered a money substitute for 
the grog ration to all who would accept it. The 
cholera plague, which came like a scourge upon 
the Nation in 1832, was made to praise the tem- 
perance reform, for it visibly picked its victims, 
as was pointed out, from the ranks of the drinker. 
Those who fled to the bottle were the first to suc- 
cumb. 



Progression: Abstinence. 73 

On February 26, 1833, on previous recommen- 
dation by the American Temperance Society, si- 
multaneous temperance mass-meetings were held 
throughout the land and in Europe, to make a 
powerful impression upon the public in the fur- 
therance of the cause of temperance. On that day, 
at a meeting of the members of Congress, the 
American Congressional Temperance Society was 
formed, on the basis of total abstinence from spir- 
its, and from the traffic therein. Hon. Lewis Cass, 
the Secretary of War, was made president of the 
society. Many distinguished members of both 
houses of Congress and other Government officials 
became members of the society. Earlier in the 
same month Rev. Justin Edwards, the correspond- 
ing secretary of the American Temperance Soci- 
ety, had addressed the members of Congress, upon 
their invitation, on the subject of temperance; 
which was followed, during the same week, by a 
rousing mass-meeting in the hall of the House of 
Representatives. The fervid speeches made on 
this occasion were printed and scattered abroad, 
and gave impetus to the reform. Following the 
example of Congress, in a number of States legis- 
lative temperance societies were formed. 



74 A Century of Drink Reform. 

During this same year — 1833 — the first Na- 
tional Temperance Convention, pursuant to a call 
by the American Temperance Society, met in 
Philadelphia the last week in May. The object 
of this gathering was to consider the means of ex- 
tending, by the general diffusion of information 
and the exertion of moral influence, the principle 
of abstinence from ardent spirits throughout the 
country. Twenty-one States were represented, 
with over four hundred delegates, including also 
a delegate from the London Temperance Society, 
or the British and Foreign Temperance Society, 
as it was renamed soon after its organization. 
Hon. Reuben Walworth, Chancellor of the State 
of New York, presided over this convention. Dis- 
tinguished men sat in the convention, and the in- 
fluence that went out was powerful for good. The 
convention commended especially the banishing of 
spirits from the army, the formation of a temper- 
ance society in Congress, the increase in the num- 
ber of temperance groceries, public-houses, and 
steamboats; and the influence of woman in the 
reform. ("In the temperance and anti-slavery 
agitations woman first emerged from the privacy 



Progression: Absti^exce. 75 

of home life to sign public petitions and mount 
the platform." — Schouler.) The convention rec- 
ommended: a temperance society in every town 
and city ward in the United States ; a temperance 
publication in every family in the land; that ed- 
itors publish information on the subject of tem- 
perance, and thus prove themselves benefactors of 
mankind; that statistics be gathered in every lo- 
cality of the progress of temperance, and of the 
relation between pauperism, and crime, and strong 
drink; that on the last Tuesday in February, 
1834, simultaneous temperance meetings be held 
throughout the world. It was also voted to form 
a more organic and representative national tem- 
perance organization, to be composed of the offi- 
cers of the American Temperance Society and of 
the several State societies, to take the place of the 
American Temperance Society. This was not car- 
ried into effect, however, until three years later. 
Through the liberality of Stephen Van Eensselaer, 
of Albany, 100,000 copies were distributed of the 
proceedings of this convention. 



76 A Ceis'tuby of Drixk Reform. 

Second Period: 1836-1851. Teetotalism. 

The second Xational Temperance Convention 
met in Saratoga, August 4, 1836, with three hun- 
dred and sixty-four delegates in attendance. The 
scope of the temperance reform was now to be 
enlarged and the bounds set out, where, on the 
purely moral side, they have ever since remained. 

Since the last National Convention a branch 
agency of the American Temperance Society had 
been established at Philadelphia, with Rev. John 
Marsh, former agent of the Connecticut State So- 
ciety, as its incumbent. By vote of Congress, and 
approval of President Jackson, the sale of spirits 
to the Indians had been prohibited in 1834. The 
first temperance almanac had been issued in Al- 
bany. The report of Samuel Chipman had been 
given to the public, containing the results of his 
investigations, on an exhaustive scale, in the jails 
and poorhouses in the State of Xew York upon 
the relation between intemperance, pauperism, 
and crime. The marine insurance companies in 
Xew York City had voted to deduct five per cent 
from premiums on ships sailing without spirits 
(of which there were already many hundreds), 



Pbogkession : Abstinence. 77 

which was followed, a few years later, by a similar 
offer from the Cincinnati companies, of a reduc- 
tion of ten per cent on temperance steamboats. 

It was now ten years since the American Tem- 
perance Society had begun its work, and ushered 
in the era of entire abstinence as the effectual 
remedy for intemperance. That principle had 
now had a fair trial, and the verdict was that it 
had worked well — as far as it had been tried. The 
principle was sound, but its application had not 
covered every contingency. Entire abstinence 
meant the renouncing of ardent spirits — the dis- 
tilled or spirituous liquors, like whisky and rum; 
nothing more. Ardent spirits alone had been 
aimed at by the temperance movement — first their 
regulation, or moderate use; then their renunci- 
ation, until now. Latterly, however it was found 
that many who had stood on their feet, members 
of temperance societies, had again fallen, not on 
rum, but on wine, cider, and beer. From the days 
of Dr. Rush it had been generally considered that 
fermented liquors, in ordinary quantities, did not 
contain sufficient spirit to produce intoxication. 
Dr. Rush did not in fact recommend these drinks 



78 A Cextuey of Dei^k Refoem. 

as a substitute for spirits, but recommended, in- 
stead, simply water. Persons who were "unable 
to relish this simple beverage of nature," he al- 
lowed, might, "in preference to ardent spirits/' 
drink cider, wines, malt liquors, molasses and 
water, or vinegar and water, the juice of the sugar 
maple, and coffee. 

It was not unknown, indeed, for men to ab- 
stain from wine, and from malt liquors even, com- 
paratively early in the reform. But this was not 
emphasized or widely recognized, and was not em- 
bodied in the organized movement. The subject 
now compelled attention, and upon closer exami- 
nation it was found that, not in distillation, but 
in the process of fermentation itself, the intoxicat- 
ing principle in liquor was produced. A story is 
told of a Xew England innkeeper, who, having 
previously been addicted to ardent spirits, was 
induced to join a temperance society. He was 
constantly in the habit of recounting the blessings 
of the temperance reform upon himself, yet he was 
notoriously oftener drunk than before, being 
scarcely ever sober enough to see his own incon- 
sistency. One morning when, as usual, he was 



Peogeession: Abstinence. 79 

much the worse for hard cider, a Quaker stopped 
with a wagon at his door. Trying in vain to ad- 
just some part of the Quaker's harness, he at 
length apologized that his eyes were very sore. 
He did n't know what was the matter with them, 
he said. 

"Do you suppose/' he asked, "that these gog- 
gles are any help to my eyes ?" revealing, as he re- 
moved them, an extraordinary pair of fiery balls 
surrounded by ulcerated, hairless lids. 

"Nay, friend," replied the Quaker. 

"Do tell me," rejoined the innkeeper, "don't 
you know something or other that will help my 
eyes ?" 

"Yea, verily," replied the Quaker, as he 
jogged his horse forward, "thee mayest wash thy 
eyes with the cider, and put the goggles over thy 
mouth." 

But there was another practical difficulty. 
Not merely did men who abstained from spirits 
lapse on cider, wine, and beer; but it was often 
hard to get men to take even the ardent spirit 
pledge while these other liquors were not given 
up. "If I could afford to use wine as you do," 



80 A Century of Drink Reform. 

some poor rum drinker was apt to reply, "I would 
be willing to give up my grog." (A poor man 
could buy far more stimulation in rum in those 
days, before the taxing, than he could in wine.) 
"You want to take away our drink, but you keep 
yours." So it was coming to pass that all in- 
toxicating drinks would have to stand or fall to- 
gether. 

The principle of abstinence, having once been 
established, it was less hard to extend it to all 
liquors that produced intoxication. The new plan 
had already been introduced in the societies at 
Hector and the neighboring towns in New York, 
between 1826 and 1830, chiefly through the influ- 
ence of Rev. Joel Jewell. As secretary of the 
Hector society, in 1827, Mr. Jewell is believed to 
be the first to have brought into use the word tee- 
totalism. There were two classes of members in 
the society : those who abstained from ardent spir- 
its only, before whose names on the roll the letters 
0. P. — old pledge — were placed; and those who 
took the more comprehensive pledge, including, 
in addition, wine, before whose name the letter T 
was placed, meaning total. By explaining this 



Progression: Abstinence. 81 

designation on the roll, that T stood for total, such 
persons were directly called T-Totalers. 

The pioneer in total abstinence across the 
water was the society at Preston, in Lancashire, 
England. Joseph Livesey, a Preston provision 
dealer, of large good sense and self -education, who 
as a poor orphan boy had worked in the cotton 
mills of that town, seeing that the pledge against 
ardent spirits alone was insufficient, drew up a 
pledge of total abstinence from all intoxicating 
liquors on August 23, 1832, signed it, called in a 
neighbor, John King, who was passing, to sign 
with him; then secured five other names. These 
were the "seven men of Preston/' who became the 
founders of the total abstinence movement in Eng- 
land. But Livesey was the father of the cause, 
and became its chief promoter. This was called 
the "tee-total pledge/' a designation not imported 
from America, we are told, but from the speech of 
a laboring man, "Dickey" Turner, who at a meet- 
ing of the Preston Society, in September, 1833, 
in referring to the current half-way pledge (from 
spirits only), said he wanted nothing of that, but 

that he 'd be out-and-out, "right down t-total for- 
6 



82 A Century op Dkiin x k Refokm. 

ever/' repeating the first letter for emphasis. 
Those present at once said that that was the word ; 
the pledge should be called teetotal. 

But however the name may have passed into 
currency, teetotalism was becoming a fact. The 
Mississippi State Temperance Convention, on 
Christmas, 1833, recommended that all new soci- 
eties abstain from wine as well as from spirits. 
The Kentucky Legislative Temperance Society, 
organized early in 1834, with the governor as its 
president, voted to abstain from both spirits and 
wine. In 1835 the New York State Temperance 
Society — the most efficient perhaps of all the State 
societies — began to advocate through its official 
paper, The Temperance Recorder, total abstinence 
from all intoxicating liquors. This position was 
also taken, in the fall of the same year, by the 
Massachusetts State Society at its convention in 
Boston. After some correspondence with the lead- 
ing men in the reform, Dr. Justin Edwards, the 
corresponding secretary of the American Temper- 
ance Society, who had already pointed out the ne- 
cessity for this advance step, sent out a call for a 
second national temperance convention, as has 



Progression: Abstinence. 83 

been mentioned, to meet in Saratoga, New York, 
in August, 1836. 

At this convention the principle of abstinence 
was extended to all intoxicating liquors. The new 
pledge was generally adopted by State and local 
societies, though there were not wanting those who 
refused to go to that extent. The new temper- 
ance organization, contemplated at the National 
Convention three years before, in Philadelphia, 
was now put into operation under the name of the 
American Temperance Union. General John 
Hartwell Cocke, of Virginia, an early stanch 
friend of the cause, whom the management of a 
large estate and the command of troops had con- 
vinced of the value of temperance, became its first 
president. Now that the American Temperance 
Society was merged into the new organization, 
Rev. Justin Edwards resigned as corresponding 
secretary. The five annual reports, beginning 
with 1831, which he had prepared, dealt not 
merely with the events of the temperance move- 
ment, but were packed with cogent discussions of 
the underlying principles of the reform. Each 
annual report was widely circulated and eagerly 



84 A Century of Drink Reform. 

read, beyond the seas even, and everywhere com- 
pelled attention. Among the abundant and ef- 
fective literature of this period these reports must 
be given a foremost place. They were now repub- 
lished in a single volume, under the title, "Perma- 
nent Documents of the American Temperance 
Society;" and the active work of Justin Edwards 
was done. Rev. John Marsh, a tried and efficient 
worker in the cause, was made corresponding sec- 
retary of the American Temperance Union, a po- 
sition he held for twenty-nine years, during the 
entire life of that body ; until, under changed con- 
ditions, it was reorganized upon a new basis, and 
with a new name. 

During this fruitful third decade the Amer- 
ican temperance movement had not only intro- 
duced the reform abroad, as we have seen, through 
its literature, but it materially furthered the cause 
through its personal representatives there. Rev. 
Nathaniel Hewit, upon resigning the general 
agency of the American Temperance Society at 
the close of 1830, was the first to go abroad in the 
interests of the movement. He visited Great 
Britain and France. The most important service, 



Progression": Abstinence. 85 

perhaps, was rendered by Rev. Robert Baird, a 
poor Pennsylvania boy, who by dint of ambition 
and hard work graduated from Jefferson College 
and from Princeton Seminary, and was now the 
agent in an American movement for the evangel- 
ization of Southern Europe, particularly France. 
In connection with this mission, during the latter 
half of the thirties, he made several tours through 
Northern Europe in the interests of temperance. 
He went before crowned heads, presenting them 
with copies of his "History of the Temperance 
Societies in the United States," and reporting per- 
sonally of the good workings of these societies. 
King Frederick William III of Prussia, who a 
few years before had commissioned his minister 
at Washington to make him an accurate report 
of the temperance societies in America, gave Baird 
a warm welcome ; ordered his history to be trans- 
lated into German, and a copy sent to all the 
clergy, with the injunction to the minister of 
police to encourage in every locality the formation 
of temperance societies against spirits. Another 
representative abroad was Edward 0. Delavan, 
who went in 1838, taking with him a large supply 



86 A Cejstuky of Delxe: Eefoem. 

of temperance literature. Delavan was an early 
retired merchant of Albany, of wealth and culture, 
who since the close of the twenties had given his 
gratuitous service to the temperance cause, and 
had become the master spirit of the movement in 
Xew York State. Through his liberality and en- 
terprise millions of temperance publications were 
circulated. He defrayed the expense of Eev. Xa- 
thaniel Hewit's European tour in 1S31, already 
mentioned; took a prominent pan in the agitation 
against fermented liquors, and at the organization 
of the American Temperance Union in IS 3 6 he 
was made chairman of the Executive Committee, 
donating ten thousand dollars to the Union for its 
work. 

"With the going out of the thirties the interest 
in the reform had apparently suffered a decline. 
This was due partly to the more comprehensive 
and drastic form of the pledge, resulting in an un- 
fruitful controversy, within the Church, over the 
question of Bible wines, due partly to the resort 
to legislative expedients, but due most largely, 
probably, to the fact that no sweep of moral en- 
thusiasm can continue unabated for many years 



Progression : Abstinence. 87 

at a time. This brief abatement was followed, 
however, by a renewed wave of interest and en- 
thnsisasm that was to rise to a height such as had 
never yet been reached. It was the Washingtonian 
movement. 

For the first time now was the temperance 
reformation to assume the title role of actual re- 
demption. Its aim and work hitherto had been 
prevention, and its sphere the moderate drinker. 
Let him entirely renounce the use of strong drink, 
it was argued, and the prolific spring of drunken- 
ness will be dried up ; and when the present gener- 
ation of drunkards, for whom there can be but 
little hope, has gone to the inevitable grave, the 
nation will be sober. In consequence the temper- 
ance movement was confined almost entirely 
within the limits of Church and of respectability. 
The new manifestation was to break forth outside 
these bounds, and addressing itself to the outcast 
victims of drink, was destined to accomplish, 
under the impulse of an almost irresistible moral 
enthusiasm and by the power of moral appeal, 
what had hitherto been considered impossible even 
to religion — the reclamation of the drunkard. 



88 A Century of Drink Reform. 

It began in Baltimore, in 1840. On a certain 
evening the first week in April, a small company 
of men — congenial spirits — had gathered, as was 
their custom, at Chase's Tavern on Liberty Street, 
to spend the evening over their cups. Rev. Mat- 
thew Hale Smith, the temperance lecturer, was 
to speak in the city that night. It was agreed that 
several of the company should go to hear the lec- 
ture, and report. When they came back one re- 
marked that he believed temperance was all right. 
The tavern-keeper, who was standing by, said those 
temperance people were all hypocrites. "It 's all 
well enough for you to say that," the other replied ; 
"it ? s to your interest to cry them down." The 
matter was talked over. Some one suggested that 
Mitchell (a tailor) draw up a pledge. After an- 
other meeting or two a pledge was drawn up, cov- 
ering all intoxicating liquors, and was signed by 
six men. They called themselves, The Washington- 
ian Temperance Society, in honor of the father of 
his country. Their first meetings were held nightly, 
in a carpenter shop; then weekly. At once they 
commenced to gather in recruits. It was a rule 
for every member to bring a man with him. By 



Progression: Abstinence. 89 

fall their society had several hundred members, 
reformed drinkers. The most valuable accession, 
who joined the society in June, was John Henry 
W. Hawkins, destined to become the leader of the 
movement, "the major-general of the total absti- 
nence army," as his comrades called him. 

Hawkins was born of Christian parents, and 
at fourteen had professed religion. But being 
apprenticed to a hatter he drank with the other 
boys ; formed a taste for liquor, and became a con- 
firmed drunkard. When, after he had married, 
he was carried home drunk, and his family would 
care for him so tenderly, it pierced his heart with 
compunction. After several trials he resolved 
once more, on June 12th, that with the help of 
God he would never again taste nor expose him- 
self to the temptation of strong drink. Three days 
later he signed the pledge, and kept it. Early in 
1841, Hawkins, with four others, went to Xew 
York City to tell the story of their reformation. 
Daily meetings were held in the largest Churches, 
and finally in the park. From here they went to 
Boston, where Faneuil Hall would not hold the 
crowds. In groups these men went from city to 



90 A Ce^tuey of Drink Reform. 

city, and State to State, as far west as St. Louis, 
securing signatures to the pledge by the thousands, 
and starting Washington Societies. A newspaper 
was established as the special organ of the move- 
ment, and Martha Washington Societies, among 
women, sprang into existence. Not the drunkard 
only, but all classes gave their names to the pledge, 
to countenance the work. By 1843, however, in- 
terest began to wane, and soon Washingtonianism 
had spent its force. Hawkins, though, continued 
his labors unremittingly in the cause of temper- 
ance until his death, in 1858, visiting every State 
in the Union save only California. 

In the light of subsequent history it is of in- 
terest to note what was the attitude toward this 
reform, of that most typical and best loved Amer- 
ican, Abraham Lincoln. By invitation from the 
Washington Society in Springfield, Illinois, Lin- 
coln delivered a Washington Birthday address in 
the Presbyterian Church of that city, on February 
22, 1842, in the course of which he said : "Whether 
or not the world would be vastly benefited by a 
total and final banishment from it of all intoxicat- 
ing drinks, seems to me not now an open question. 



Progression: Abstinence. 91 

Three-fourths of mankind confess the affirmative 
with their tongues; and, I believe, all the rest 
acknowledge it in their hearts. ... If the 
relative grandeur of revolutions shall be estimated 
by the great amount of human misery they allevi- 
ate and the small amount they inflict, then, indeed, 
will this be the grandest the world shall ever have 
seen. . . . And when the victory shall be 
complete, when there shall be neither a slave nor 
a drunkard on earth, how proud the title of that 
land which may truly claim to be the birthplace 
and the cradle of both those revolutions that shall 
have ended in that victory !" Lincoln entered 
zealously into the temperance reform, having made 
speeches and written on the subject when yet a 
young man. By his unswerving fidelity to the 
principle of total abstinence through the years of 
his later public life, he became a pillar of strength 
to the temperance cause — a service less widely un- 
derstood to-day or appreciated, because of his 
larger labors in Negro emancipation. In 1862 he 
signed the bill banishing grog from the navy, as 
thirty years before it had been banished from the 
army. The influence of Lincoln's mother, who 



92 A Century of Drink Reform. 

died when he was but nine, was never effaced. 
Three things she had impressed upon him: never 
to tell a falsehood; nor use profanity; nor taste 
liquor. 

In the wake of the Washingtonian crusade fol- 
lowed a new manifestation — the secret fraternal 
temperance orders. They sprang up in response 
to new needs. The drunkards, who by the thou- 
sands had been swept out upon dry land by this 
wave of unparalleled moral fury, needed care. 
They must be gathered up, and by sympathy and 
encouragement nurtured to health and strength. 
Outcasts from society, they needed the sense of 
brotherhood and to be restored to respectability. 
With no money, they needed financial aid in case 
of sickness or death. And none of the existing 
beneficiary fraternal orders rested on total absti- 
nence. 

The first such secret temperance organization 
in America was the Independent Order of Rechab- 
ites (for whose name see Jeremiah xxxv), the first 
"tent" of which was established in Boston in 1841. 
It received its name and form from a similar order 
in England, established at Salford in 1835. Up 



Progression : Abstinence. 93 

to the time of the Civil War this order had a good 
growth. Lately its prosperity has revived some- 
what. 

A more important order in preserving the 
fruits of the Washingtonian movement was the Or- 
der of the Sons of Temperance, organized in New 
York City on September 29, 1842, in Teetotaler's 
Hall, 71 Division Street. This order, like the pre- 
ceding one, was beneficiary. It grew rapidly, 
reaching the zenith of its prosperity at the close 
of the first decade of its existence, with nearly a 
quarter of a million members. This order was 
introduced into Great Britain in 1847, and has 
since spread widely to other countries. Since 
1866 women have been admitted to full member- 
ship. 

The Cadets of Temperance, offspring of the 
Sons of Temperance, and composed of youth, at- 
tained an independent existence between the years 
1845-47, at the time when Bands of Hope sprang 
up in England. Cold Water Armies had already 
been in existence in this country for some years. 
In 1859, Rev. John Marsh, the corresponding sec- 
retary of the American Temperance Union, had 



94: A Century of Drii^k Reform. 

started a paper, The Youth's Temperance Banner, 
in which "the doings of the juveniles were first 
brought to light." 

In 1845, the Templars of Honor and Temper- 
ance, offspring likewise of the Sons of Temper- 
ance, came into being. Organized by the members 
of the latter order, and intended at first only as a 
higher degree in that order — for more educational 
work and a study of methods of active propagand- 
ism— it separated from its parent in 1846, and 
soon spread over the country and into Canada. As 
the temple succeeded the tabernacle in the wilder- 
ness, not to be taken down or folded up, so the name 
of this order was to be a symbol of its permanence. 
In 1878, an endowment plan, with sick and death 
benefits, was adopted. 

What proved to become the largest of all the 
fraternal temperance orders originated in Central 
New York, in 1851 — the Order of Good Templars. 
During this year a lodge at Utica and at Oriskany 
Falls, belonging to an ephemeral temperance or- 
ganization with fantastic rites, called the Knights 
of Jericho, resolved to form a new organization, 
with a new ritual. They called themselves "'Good 



Progression : Abstinence. 95 

Templars/' to sustain their recognition as an indi- 
vidual body. About a dozen lodges were thus or- 
ganized in Oneida County, when in July, 1852, 
at a convention of these lodges in Utica, the newly- 
organized lodge at Syracuse withdrew, through a 
grievance of its leader, Levrett E. Coon, and re- 
solved itself into an "Independent" Order of Good 
Templars, changing its motto to Faith, Hope, and 
Charity. Some of the other lodges joined in 
this — practically all of them later; and thus con- 
stituted, this organization was to become the fruit- 
ful parent of a multitude. The order grew rap- 
idly. In 1855, at a meeting of the Grand Lodges 
of ten States, in Cleveland, the Eight Worthy 
Grand Lodge was organized as the supreme head 
of the order. In 1874, Hon. Samuel D. Hastings, 
for a number of years the head of the order, was 
sent to Australia and the islands of the Pacific in 
the interests of temperance. Since then it has ex- 
tended over all the earth. In 1876, at Louisville, 
Kentucky, the Grand Lodges of Great Britain and 
Ireland seceded, ostensibly over the question of ex- 
tending the order to the Negroes. In 1887, 
through the persevering labors of John B. Finch, 



96 A Cejntuby of Dbe^k Eefobm. 

for three years the head of the order, this breach 
was healed. Through the agency of this temper- 
ance organization many hundred thousands of 
men, women, and youth have taken a life pledge 
of total abstinence. The order is not beneficiary. 
The Washingtonian movement, though of brief 
duration, served to give a new impulse to the 
growth of temperance sentiment. In 1842, the 
Congressional Temperance Society was re-organ- 
ized, with over eighty members, upon a basis of 
total abstinence from all intoxicating liquors. 
Hon. George X. Briggs, of Massachusetts, later 
for a number of years the governor of that State, 
a man zealous in behalf of temperance, and one 
of the finest types of manhood produced by this 
State of many grand men — became the president 
of this society. In January of the same year both 
houses of the Pennsylvania Legislature, at Har- 
risburg, adjourned to attend, with the governor 
and the heads of State departments, the session of 
the State Temperance Convention held in that 
city. The following year the Corporation of Xew 
York City voted to provide no intoxicating liquors 
at the banquet and reception to be given to the 



Pkogression : Abstinence. 97 

President of the United States in June; and no 
wine was provided at the massive Bunker Hill 
celebration in Boston, the same month. K"o wine 
was served at the festivities attending the inaugu- 
ration of Edward Everett as President of Harvard 
College, in 1846. Eeuben H. Walworth, Chan- 
cellor of the State of JTew York, had become presi- 
dent of the American Temperance Union in 1845, 
succeeding General J. H. Cocke. Dr. Thomas 
Sewall, of Washington, at about this time also, 
had prepared his plates of the human stomach, 
showing that organ in all stages from health to 
death by delirium tremens. Through the liberal- 
ity and personal labors of Mr. E. C. Delavan, 
these were hung as charts in schools, prisons, and 
public institutions of various kinds. Temperance 
lecturers made use of them, moving men often- 
times to conviction where argument alone failed. 
On August 4, 1846, the first World's Temper- 
ance Convention met in London, in the Covent 
Garden Theater, for a five days' session. This 
event marked the grandest demonstration in favor 
of the temperance cause that had yet been wit- 
nessed in England. Among the thirty-two Amer- 
7 



95 A Cehtuby :r ^'sixk Reform. 

ican representatives present were Lyman Beecher, 
Z. N. Kirk. John Marsh, William Lloyd Garri- 
son, Elihu Burritt, and Frederick Douglass. 

g :: the most effective men on the platform 
during the Washingtonian decade was Dr. Charles 
Xewett Relinquishing a lucrative medical prac- 
tice in 1838, and with a scientific mastery of the 
subject of strong drink, he addressed himself 
idefly to the thinking portion of the community. 
His Lectures were, however, popular in form, and 
were spiced with piquant illustrations. Jewett' s 
keen, flashing eye would kindle any audience, and 
with a vein of humor unsurpassed he made the 
hour pass rapidly, and made his second appearance 
more welcome everywhere than his first. Many 
a Temperance speaker of that day filled his cruse 
at the sparkling spring of Jewett's logic and wit. 
In 1849 he published his lectures, poems, and 
other writings on temperance. Of equally keen 
— ::. incessant and most fearless advocate of tem- 
perance, was that hunchback Wyoming Valley 
Presbyterian preacher, with a heart as generous 
hi wit was unsparing — Eev. Thomas P. Hunt, 
_:le Tommy- Hunt, as he was familiarly 



Progression : Abstinence. 99 

called. It was he who had been chiefly instru- 
mental in enlisting Dr. Charles Jewett actively in 
the reform. General Ashbel Riley, of Rochester, 
was another powerful lecturer in those days, trav- 
eling extensively over this country and in Europe. 
Captain Benjamin Joy, of Ludlowville, New 
York, was another indomitable pioneer in the tem- 
perance reform, who for forty-five years gave his 
time and his strength, without remuneration, to 
the cause. After Rev. Joel Jewell, of Hector, he 
was one of the first to organize a teetotal society 
at Ludlowville. It was at a prayer-meeting in his 
home, in 1843, that a young Princeton student 
decided to enter the ministry, a man still young 
at eighty, whose eloquent voice and facile pen have 
for more than half a century been employed with 
unflinching courage in the mighty battle against 
strong drink; namely, Theodore L. Cuyler. 

Two names yet remain — among all the apos- 
tles of temperance the most famous. As at the 
seventh anniversary of the American Temperance 
Union in New York City in 1843, the Hutchinson 
family of singers from New Hampshire were in- 
troduced to the larger world and to fame, so at the 



100 A Century of Drink Reform. 

eighth anniversary, in 1844, in the same city, 
John B. Gough was introduced to the world. A 
native of England, but since the age of twelve 
an American ; a bookbinder by trade, first in New 
York City, then in various cities in New England ; 
his father and mother — godly parents — some years 
dead, and recently also his wife and child, from 
hunger and neglect; John B. Gough, now at 
twenty-five a hopeless drunkard and wreck, was 
invited by one Joel Stratton, a Quaker, on the 
streets of Worcester, Massachusetts, to attend a 
temperance meeting — in October, 1842. He signs 
the pledge; he tells the story of his reformation 
in the rural districts of Worcester County, after 
the manner of a Washingtonian ; he succumbs 
again to his old habit, but only to confess his weak- 
ness in open meeting, and sign again. Marrying 
again in 1843, and determined now to devote his 
life to rescuing drunkards, he starts out through 
New England lecturing, until he reaches Boston, 
where he forms the friendship of Deacon Moses 
Grant. It is this patron of temperance who intro- 
duces Gough at the anniversary in New York City. 
Gough' s gifts are at once recognized, and John 



Progression : Abstinence. 101 

Marsh, the corresponding secretary of the Amer- 
ican Temperance Union, engages him for a tour 
through New York State. His fame is established ! 
A natural-born orator, of unsurpassed dramatic 
powers, he could move an audience to laughter or 
to tears. From that day to the day of his death, 
in 1886, he was the most brilliant .and famous 
speaker on the temperance platform, and one of 
the most popular lecturers America has ever had. 
Three times he visited England in the interests of 
the reform. 

On July 2, 1849, Father Theobald Mathew, 
the great Irish apostle of temperance, landed in 
New York City. His American tour may be said 
to close, with fitting climax, another era in the 
great temperance reformation. A humble friar, 
ministering in a mission chapel in Cork, Father 
Mathew's reception in America was such as the 
proudest monarchs of earth might envy. His only 
title to distinction lay in his labors on behalf of 
temperance. A million persons and more had 
taken the pledge of total abstinence at his hands 
in Ireland and Great Britain. Father Mathew 
had taken up the cause of temperance through the 



102 A Century of Drink Reform. 

influence of one William Martin, a Quaker, on the 
governing board of the Cork Workhouse, with 
Mathew, where the sad results of drink were espe- 
cially manifest. Having sent for Martin to assist 
him in forming a temperance society, Father 
Mathew calls a public meeting on the evening of 
April 10, 1838, and is the first to affix his name to 
the pledge. In three months twenty-five thousand 
had signed, and Mathew belonged to the public 
from now on. 

Father Mathew's welcome to New York City 
was one that is seldom accorded a foreigner. Wel- 
comed officially by addresses from the Board of 
Aldermen, the mayor, and the heads of the differ- 
ent temperance organizations in the land, the pro- 
cession from Castle Garden to the City Hall was 
a truly triumphal entry. He received a similar 
official, enthusiastic welcome in Brooklyn, Boston, 
Philadelphia, and other cities. He was banqueted 
by President Taylor at the White House ; honored 
by the United States Senate with admission to the 
bar of the Senate chamber, a distinction shown 
previously to but one foreigner — General Lafa- 
yette. Among the eulogies pronounced on this 



Progression : Abstinence. 103 

occasion by several distinguished senators was one 
by Henry Clay, who said: "It is but a merited 
tribute of respect to a man who has achieved a 
great social revolution — a revolution in which no 
blood has been shed, a revolution which has in- 
volved no desolation, which has caused no bitter 
tears of widow's and orphans to flow ; a revolution 
which has been achieved without violence, and a 
greater one, perhaps, than has ever been accom- 
plished by any benefactor of mankind." 

Father Mathew visited twenty-five States, ad- 
ministered the pledge, under growing ill-health, to 
some six hundred thousand persons, ma^y of them 
— perhaps most of them — his own co-religionists, 
whom other agencies had not, or could not, have 
reached. On November 8, 1851, he gave his fare- 
well address to the people of the United States, 
and returned to his native land, soon to rest from 
his labors. 

And as the century had just entered its third 
quarter, so the reform was now also passing over 
into a third phase. 



(III.) 

CHAPTEE III. 

Culmination : Prohibition. 
1851-1856. 

That the principle of moderation is inadequate 
and impracticable as a remedy for intemperance; 
that the total abandonment as a beverage, not of 
ardent spirits only, but of the fermented liquors 
as well (being in no sense necessary in health), — 
is the only wise ground and sure remedy : this had 
become the accepted opinion and ever-deepening 
conviction at the time of which we write. On this 
basis an incipient reform had grown into a refor- 
mation, a social revolution espoused by men fore- 
most in mind and morals, and by all the best inter- 
ests in society. A propagandism directed with sig- 
nal ability, and sustained with singular enthusi- 
asm, had led men by the hundred thousands in all 
walks of life to resolve that they would put away 
the drunkard's cup forever. 

But this had not all proven clear gain. The 
104 



Culmination: Prohibition. 105 

ranks of the drunkard were being recruited, not 
alone from the moderate drinkers, but from those 
who had taken the pledge as well. They meant 
to keep the pledge, but fell before the power of a 
returning appetite. How many went down again 
no one knows. Perhaps not far from one-half. 
When the pledge covered only spirituous liquors 
the trouble was readily enough seen, and the pledge 
was extended. But yet it did not avail. With the 
safeguard and support of a pledge of total absti- 
nence from all intoxicants, men still lapsed into 
their former habits. Of the half million that were 
helped to their feet temporarily by the Washing- 
tonian crusade, it was estimated that two-thirds 
again fell ; this notwithstanding the fact that the 
temperance orders, introduced at this time, aimed 
specifically to prevent such lapse. Men thought 
at - first that teetotalism was a solution of all former 
difficulties, and would prove to be the agency of 
redemption. In 1843 a huge demonstration had 
been given Father Mathew in Cork, for Ireland 
was considered redeemed. The consumption of 
strong drink had been reduced by over one-half. 
But Father Mathew went on a tour to England, 



106 A Century of Dbdtk Refokm. 

and the consumption of liquor increased again. 
The potato famine of 1845-47 increased it still 
more; and when Father AEathew returned from 
America, sick and exhausted, he found the fruits 
of his labors gradually slipping away. 

Attention had been concentrated on the drinker 
and drunkard. To him men had appealed, first to 
drink only moderately; then not to drink at all. 
Looking about now in perplexity, eyes fell on that 
other man — on him who hands out the liquor that 
makes men drunk. Here was discovered the source 
of trouble. Here was the man who incited afresh 
the smothered flames of thirst which men were 
struggling to quench. That men should drink was 
his business, his living. Through every avenue he 
distributed his goods — at the grocery, where people 
buy; at the tavern, where they eat and lodge; at 
the grogshop, where men find sociability; at the 
various times and occasions that bring people to- 
gether — everywhere men were brought face to face 
with strong drink and temptation. And no man 
can resist temptation beyond a certain point ; he 
must be kept from entering in. 

That making a livelihood out of a business 



Culmination : Prohibition. 107 

which thus tempts and destroys men is but poor 
employment, had been recognized and urged, in- 
deed, early in the reform. Large numbers had in 
consequence entirely abandoned that occupation;* 
but their places were generally only again taken 
by others less scrupulous. Prom this position, that 
men ought to quit such business, conviction moved 
by an inevitable transition to this other position; 
namely, this business, being the great remaining 
obstacle to the success of the temperance reforma- 
tion, should and must cease. 

But how? Very naturally, go to the dram- 
seller with moral appeal to desist selling, as men 
had gone to the drinker to desist drinking. If the 
one had yielded to such appeal, w r hy should not the 
other ? It was the attempt to put this belief into 
practice that ushered in a new era — the third — in 
the reform. 

Up in Portland, Maine, there was a man in 
business, of Quaker parents, and scarcely over 
thirty, who had already in various ways showed 
that he possessed both a firm conviction and a reso- 
lute courage in the matter of temperance. His 
name was Seal Dow. He had just secured an offi- 



108 A Century of Drink Reform. 

cial position for a friend, a Harvard graduate and 
a man of fine ability, admirably qualified for the 
place, but whose tenure of it was conditioned on 
his keeping strictly sober. An attractive and very 
respectable liquor shop in the vicinity was his chief 
pitfall, his pride still keeping him from the lower 
resorts. Appealed to by his wife, and believing 
that the refusal of this man to furnish him liquor 
would help him in his resolve to abstain, and per- 
haps save him and his family from impending ruin, 
Dow called on the liquor-seller and laid the peculiar 
circumstances of the case before him. 

The man listened respectfully, and Dow be- 
lieved he was making a fine impression, until, 
when he had finished, the man replied to this ef- 
fect : "Mr. Dow, you attend to your business, and 
I will look after my own. My business is to sell 
liquor; I have paid my money for this privilege. 
That money helps to pay your taxes, and it ? s small 
business for a man to come around here trying to 
prevent me from doing what business I can, and 
have a right to under the law. If this man comes 
in here in a sober condition and asks for liquor, I 
have a right to sell it to him, and shall do so. And 



Cultivation : Prohibition. 109 

I do n't want you to come around whining about it, 
either." Stung to the quick with disappointment 
and indignation, Xeal Dow said that he would see 
to it that sooner or later he and all like him were 
driven from the community, unless they abandoned 
their infamous business. The very license, as it 
hung in plain sight behind the bar, seemed itself 
to shout in exultation, "The State of Maine gives 
him this right I" 

The temperance reform hitherto had encoun- 
tered only human appetite. This, though persist- 
ent enough, had yet yielded largely to moral ap- 
peal. Isow the reform was to encounter a more 
cruel and unconquerable foe ; namely, human ava- 
rice. But Dow's promise to the liquor-seller proved 
to be no idle threat. The words had burned them- 
selves deeply into his soul. It was his business to 
sell liquor, the man had said ; he had paid for that 
privilege. He had a "right" to sell, consequently. 
Yes, so his license stated. His license ! A license 
then means, not restriction or regulation, but per- 
mission — for money. Shame ! for a people, for 
such a bribe, to allow that a man may do evil. But 
the power to grant this privilege involves the 



110 A Century of Drink Reform. 

power, also, to withhold it! And ISTeal Dow sol- 
emnly vows before God that he will carry his ap- 
peal to the people of the State of Maine, who have 
given this man such right, that they shall take 
away from him that right, and outlaw from the 
State this business which thus impoverishes and 
destroys her citizens. 

He canvasses the State from one end to the 
other, giving addresses, holding mass-meetings, 
scattering broadcast temperance literature. Neal 
Dow becomes the storm-center of the new agitation. 
The arguments, taken from facte near at hand, are 
irresistible. Maine, rich in natural resources, yet 
poor. The products of her two principal indus- 
tries, lumbering and the fisheries, exported chiefly 
to the West Indies, receiving in return rum and 
molasses; consuming the rum, and converting the 
molasses into rum and consuming that also. This 
in addition to the native product, for Maine was 
still overrun with breweries and distilleries. So 
that the vast wealth of the forests and fisheries 
went down the throats of the people in the form of 
strong drink, and with all their labor they were left 
only the poorer. Signs of wretchedness and pov- 



Culmination : Prohibition. Ill 

erty abounded everywhere. Farms carelessly 
tilled; fences tumbled down; neglect about the 
house — gates unhinged, blinds coming off, window 
panes broken, with an old hat or garment put in 
the place to keep out the cold. 

But persistent seed-sowing at length yielded its 
harvest. After an unsuccessful law in 1846 
(which lacked the means for its own enforcement), 
came the absolutely prohibitory law of 1851, in 
effect July 4th (Independence-day!), the first- 
fruits of prohibition from the ripened fields of 
temperance reform. Xo citizen of Maine shall 
henceforth be permitted, for a money consider- 
ation, to put a block of stumbling in his brother's 
way; or to rob those who are weak, because he is 
willing to share his booty with the State. The 
liquor business is outlawed. Xeal Dow, as mayor 
of Portland, the framer and champion of this meas- 
ure, becomes the father of the "Maine Law" — the 
model for all similar laws that were to follow. 

Let us pause here to note more in detail the 
successive stages by which we have come thus far : 

First. The sale of strong drink, being recog- 
nized as fraught with abuse and evil, was sought 



112 A Century of Drink Reform. 

to be properly restricted with various regulations, 
according to no definite plan or principle, but as 
expediency seemed to suggest from time to time. 
Accordingly, from earliest colonial days we have 
such regulations as these : fixing the price of beer 
and ale at one penny, then at two pence ; punishing 
drunkenness — now the drunkard only, now the 
keeper of the public house also ; forbidding drink- 
ing to one's health — permitting it again ; laying a 
duty — taking it off again; forbidding the sale on 
certain hours of the Sabbath, now for the entire 
day ; limiting the number of retailers to a town — 
removing such limit; making debts for liquor un- 
recoverable; making it unlawful to sell on credit 
beyond ten shillings — to sell on credit at all ; post- 
ing a list of habitual tipplers in every public-house ; 
taxing the distiller and brewer ; licensing the ven- 
der of spirituous liquors — of vinous and malt liq- 
uors also ; making the license fee small, now larger ; 
allowing the sale of larger quantities without li- 
cense ; requiring a license for every sale, etc. ; and, 
lastly, requiring of the liquor-seller a bond for the 
proper observance of these regulations.* 

Second. The traffic in strong drink is not so 



Culmination : Prohibition. 113 

much merely disposed to evil, and therefore to be 
regulated ; it is itself evil, and should therefore be 
abandoned. It is in violation of the law of God, 
which leads not into temptation, and works no ill 
to his neighbor. 

In the fifth report of the American Temper- 
ance Society, in 1832, Justin Edwards set forth 
this truth with great power and conclusiveness. 
This report went to all parts of the world. It 
passed through several editions, and was reprinted 
in England. Chancellor Eeuben H. Walworth, of 
New York State, wrote: "It is of the utmost im- 
portance to the temporal and eternal interests of 
our citizens that a stop should be put to the sale of 
ardent spirits as speedily as possible. . . . 
Satisfy the unreflecting vender of ardent spirits 
that he is morally responsible for all the crime and 
misery which his maddening potations naturally 
produce, and he will relinquish the demoralizing 
traffic." The Churches of New England at this 
time voted not to admit to membership any who 
refused to give up this business. 

Third. If the traffic in strong drink is itself 
evil, and wrong, so that no man should engage in 
8 



114 A Century of Drink Reform. 

it, then the law that permits this traffic is wrong, 
and should be repealed. 

The sixth report of the American Temperance 
Society, in 1833, by Justin Edwards, devoted itself 
to the clear demonstration of this truth. This re- 
port, too, was widely read, and its position com- 
mended by such men as, Presidents Francis Way- 
land, Heman Humphrey, and Wilbur Eisk; by 
Hon. Mark Doolittle, Gerrit Smith, Edward C. 
Delavan, Theodore Frelinghuysen, and Chief Jus- 
tice David Daggett, of Connecticut. 

The step here was simply for the repeal of all 
license laws, which were recognized to be essen- 
tially permissive. As Hon. Theodore Erelinghuy- 
sen, the distinguished senator from New Jersey, 
said : "If men will engage in this destructive traf- 
fic ; if they will stoop to degrade their reason and 
reap the wages of iniquity, let them no longer have 
the Law Book as a pillow." Hon. John Cotton 
Smith, ex-Governor of Connecticut, wrote: "I am 
decidedly of the opinion that all laws for licensing 
and regulating the sale of ardent spirits ought to 
be instantly repealed — 1. Because, if intended as 
a source of revenue, they are manifestly immoral ; 



Culmination: Prohibition. 115 

2. If considered as sumptuary laws, which by their 
operation are designed to restrain the sale and con- 
sumption of that article, they are wholly ineffi- 
cient." What benefit such repeal would work is set 
forth by Judge Jonas Piatt of the New York State 
Supreme Bench, distinguished alike as jurist and 
philanthropist, in an address before the Clinton 
County Temperance Society, on February 26, 1833 
(the day of simultaneous temperance mass-meet- 
ings throughout the country) ; namely : "By fair 
construction, such license and tax legalize the traf- 
fic, and a plausible excuse is afforded to those who 
now pay a premium for such legislative sanction. 
The law is an impediment to the Temperance Eef- 
ormation. Let reason have free action and fair 
play, and we ask nothing more. Public opinion 
would be brought to bear with much greater force 
against the practice of retailing this poison if 
dramshops were left unlicensed and unsanctioned 
by any statute regulations whatever. Whenever 
public opinion and the moral sense of our commu- 
nity shall be so far corrected and matured as to re- 
gard them in this true light, and when the public 
safety shall be thought to require it, dramshops " 



116 A Century of Drink Keform. 

will be indictable at common law as public nui- 
sances." That is what in fact had been done a year 
or two before in the city of Washington. Upon the 
opinion of Hon. William Wirt, Attorney-General 
of the United States, that they had this power if 
the public good required it, the Board of Health of 
that city had pronounced the sale of ardent spirits 
a public nuisance, and ordered it discontinued for 
the space of ninety days. 

Beginning at about this time, licenses were re- 
fused in a number of towns and counties in Massa- 
chusetts and elsewhere, and in many of these ar- 
dent spirits ceased to be sold. Petitions were pre- 
sented to State Legislatures during the thirties, 
asking that all license laws be repealed. Neal Dow 
writes of this period, many years afterwards in his 
Autobiography: "The question whether licenses 
should be granted, however, was a practical one 
only from a moral and educational point of view. 
Liquor-selling was by no means confined to li- 
censed dealers. Everybody sold who cared to sell. 
Only the 'good' citizens who desired to deal in it 
took the trouble to obtain the legal permission to 
do so. Bestrictive clauses of the law were gener- 



Culmination : Prohibition. 117 

ally disregarded by the licensed sellers, while the 
prohibitive features had no restraining effect upon 
those who could not, or did not trouble themselves 
to, obtain licenses. The authorities, as a .rule, 
made no attempt to enforce the law against either 
class of violators. Nevertheless, we believed it 
would be of immense value in its moral effect and 
educational influence if the regularly elected rep- 
resentatives of the people should officially declare 
against giving the sanction of law to the iniquitous 
trade; hence the action of the friends of temper- 
ance." 

Fourth. Since the traffic in strong drink is 
evil, and morally wrong, not only should the public 
sanction of it, in the form of license, be withheld ; 
but the continued sale should be prohibited by law. 

Judge Piatt, in his address already referred 
to, had said that they asked for no coercive legis- 
lation, but only the repeal of permissive laws. 
Justin Edwards, in his report of the American 
Temperance Society, already mentioned, had taken 
the same position, yet had confessed that if, after 
such legal sanction had been taken away, and the 
power of public sentiment and moral appeal had 



118 A Century of Drink Keeorm. 

done its perfect work, men still persist in the 
traffic, then the State might step in and take such 
measures in self-defense as it deemed adequate. 
Gerrit Smith, of Peterboro, New York, — he portly 
in appearance, princely in manners and munifi- 
cence, the embodiment of benignity and grace; in 
the very forefront of the twin reform movements — 
abolition and temperance, and later member of 
Congress, — Gerrit Smith, as early as 1833, at the 
annual meeting of the American Temperance So- 
ciety in New York City, in May, had introduced 
a resolution calling for the abolition of the traffic 
in ardent spirits by law. He argued that public 
opinion was far in advance of the laws; that the 
law be brought up to the level of public opinion, 
lest public opinion fall back to the level of the 
laws. "Could a society that should require its 
members to abstain from purchasing lottery tickets 
be expected to preserve silence on the subject of 
lottery offices?'' (Lotteries were just beginning 
to be abolished by law.) "No more can a society, 
formed to dissuade men from drinking spirits, look 
with indifference on the attractions and snares of 
the rum shop." 



Culmination: Prohibition. 119 

That this step should be taken was inevitable. 
In the course of a few years a system of local 
option came into effect quite generally. Towns 
and counties did not only withhold license, but 
made it a punishable offense to sell without a li- 
cense. Thus in 1842 there was but one county in 
Massachusetts where the sale of spirituous liquors 
was licensed, and for several years there was not 
a single licensed house for the sale of spirits in 
Boston. The result of all this was a move by the 
liquor men — precisely what temperance men had 
advocated a few years before — to sweep away all 
license and restrictive laws as unconstitutional, 
claiming the right to sell without a license or ex- 
press permission. Suits which involved this prin- 
ciple were carried from New Hampshire, Massa- 
chusetts, and Rhode Island, to the United States 
Supreme Court in 1845, on appeal by the liquor 
men. Although they had both Webster and Choate 
to argue their case, the verdict was against them. 
On March 6, 1847, before an anxious public, the 
Supreme Court handed down its decision — the first 
one arising out of the temperance movement. 

Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, in his opinion, 



120 A Century of Drink Reform. 

said : "Every State may regulate its own internal 
traffic according to its own judgment, and upon its 
own views of the interest and well-being of its 
citizens. I am not aware tliat these principles 
have ever been questioned. If any State deems the 
retail and internal traffic in ardent spirits injuri- 
ous to its citizens, and calculated to produce illness, 
vice, and debauchery, I see nothing in the Consti- 
tution of the United States to prevent it from regu- 
lating and restraining the traffic, or from prohibit- 
ing it altogether if it thinks proper." 

Justice Catron : "I admit, as inevitable, that if 
the State has the power of restraint by license to 
any extent, she has the discretionary power to 
judge of its limits, and to go to the length 
of prohibiting sales altogether if such be her pol- 
icy ; and that if the court can not interfere in the 
case before us, neither can we interfere in the ex- 
treme case of entire exclusion." 

Justice Grier : "It is not necessary to array the 
appalling statistics of misery, pauperism, and 
crime which have their origin in the use or abuse 
of ardent spirits. The police power, which is ex- 
clusively in the States, is alone competent to the 
correction of these great evils, and all measures of 



Culmination: Prohibition. 121 

restraint and prohibition necessary to effect the 
purpose are within the scope of that authority. 
All laws for the restraint or punishment of crime, 
for the preservation of the public peace, health 
and morals, are, from their very nature, of pri- 
mary importance, and lie at the foundation of 
social existence. They are for the protection of 
life and liberty, and necessarily compel all laws 
of secondary importance which relate only to prop- 
erty, convenience, or luxury, to recede when they 
come into contact or collision." 

Justice Woodbury: " After articles have come 
within the territorial limits of States, whether on 
land or water" (Webster had argued that the right 
to import implies the right to sell) "the destruc- 
tion itself of that which constitutes disease and 
death, and the longer continuance of such articles 
within their limits, or the terms and conditions 
of their continuance, when conflicting with their 
legitimate police, or with their power over internal 
commerce, or with their right of taxation over all 
persons and property within their jurisdiction, 
seems to me one of the first principles of State 
sovereignty and indispensable to public safety." 



122 A Centuey of Deink Eefokm. 

With this decision the way was clear for a fur- 
ther and final advance; namely: 

Fifth. The complete prohibition, by the State, 
of the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors 
for beverage purposes. 

Dr. Lyman Beecher, in his famous Six Ser- 
mons, had already suggested the necessity for gen- 
eral prohibitory legislation. Among the first 
clearly to state this principle and publicly to cham- 
pion it was General James Appleton, a veteran of 
the War of 1812, a man of high character, of great 
ability and influence, and of unflinching moral 
courage. A member of the Maine Legislature 
from Portland, he was made chairman of a special 
committee, appointed by that body in 1837, to take 
into consideration the entire subject of the license 
system of the State. Some alteration in the license 
laws was widely called for. The report of this 
committee, prepared by General Appleton, after 
calling attention to the numerous changes that had 
been made from time to time in license laws ever 
since such laws were first passed by Massachusetts 
in 1646, pointed out that the difficulty lay not in 
the form of the law, or in the mere manner of 



Culmination: Prohibition. 123 

granting the license — circumstances of but little 
moment,* — but in the principle of the law itself. 
"They authorize the sale of ardent spirits for com- 
mon use ; this is the principle that gives them char- 
acter/' he writes. To these laws is attributed the 
wide prevalence of intemperance. "They make it 
lawful and reputable for a person who has a li- 
cense to sell it, and of course not improper nor dis- 
honorable to purchase and use it." As a remedy 
the report suggests : "When it is seen that the traffic 
in any article entails not only pauperism and crime 
upon the community, but that in numerous cases 
it threatens human life, and in many instances de- 
stroys it at once, it is difficult of escaping the con- 
clusion that the government should interfere and 
prohibit it altogether. ... It is sufficiently 
difficult to reform the manners and habits of the 
community when the influence and authority of 
the law can be brought to aid the object, but to do 
this against the law and against the direct and pow- 
erful interests of a numerous class of men created 
by law is scarcely possible. . . . The mere 
existence of such a (prohibitory) law would exert 
the most salutary influence upon the public mind. 



124 A Centuby of Dkesk Kefokm. 

It would of itself go far to create public opinion 
in regard to the necessity of ardent spirits, for it 
is no more true that the laws are an expression of 
public opinion than that they influence public 
opinion. They are as surely the cause as the effect 
of the popular will." 

This report was widely read throughout the 
State, and did much to mold sentiment. From 
this time onward the subject was constantly kept 
before the Legislature and the people, through the 
instrumentality chiefly of the Maine Temperance 
Union, which included in its membership many of 
the foremost citizens of the State, until in 1845 
a Legislative body had been elected pledged to 
total abstinence and favorable to prohibition. The 
result was the first probihitory law, in 1846, passed 
by a vote of 81 to 42 in the House, and of 23 to 5 
in the Senate, and signed by Governor Anderson. 
After several unsuccessful efforts, later, to pass 
measures remedying the practical defects in the 
law, a new bill was brought before the Legislature, 
which, after being thoroughly discussed in two ses- 
sions, was passed by a two-thirds vote of both 
houses, and on June 2d was signed by Governor 
Hubbard, going into effect July 4th — the law of 



Culmination: Prohibition. 125 

1851. With this event the era of prohibition be- 
gins. 

Other States were not slow to follow. Maine 
had proved herself true to her motto as the Dirigo 
State — "I direct." Sentiment had been slowly 
maturing elsewhere. In a number of States a ma- 
jority of the towns had already for several years 
declared against license. They were now ready 
to adopt the Maine law. 

1852. In March the Territory of Minnesota, 
by popular vote, ratifies the adoption of Maine 
Law. The courts, however, declared "that the sub- 
mission of this question to the people for a popular 
vote had been unconstitutional ;" and prohibition is 
in operation but for a short time. Rhode Island, in 
May, adopted a similar law, strengthening it by 
subsequent enactments. Massachusetts, in the 
same month, followed with a Maine Law. The sec- 
tion relating to search was declared unconstitu- 
tional, the law otherwise standing.' Its place was 
taken by the more elaborate law of 1855. Ver- 
mont, in December, closed the year with a Maine 
Law, a law that was to stand uninterruptedly for 
over half a century. 



126 A Cestuey of Detsx Reform:. 

During this same year — IS 52 — the Sons of 
Temperance also declared for prohibition, 

1853. By act of the Legislature, a ITaine Law 
was submitted to the people of 11 :'; : : lean for a vote, 
who declared for it by a majority of twenty thou- 
sand. The court was equally divided on the con- 
stitutionality of the submission clause. The law 
remained, but its enforcement was practically sus- 
pended. It was superseded by the more perfect 
law of 1555. 

On September 6th. the second World's Tem- 
perance Convention met in Xew York City. ™i:h 
delegates from every State, from Canada, and from 
Great Britain. Xeal Dow was elected president 
of the Convention, a testimony to his service in the 
cause of prohibition. The Maine Law formed the 
chief topic of discussion during the sessions. 

The cause had already found friends in other 
lands. In England, on June 1st of this same 
vear— IS 5 3— the United Kingdom Alliance had 
been organized for "the total and immediate legis- 
lative suppression of the tramc in intoxicating 
liquors as beverages." The initiative in this move- 
ment was taken bv ~Mi\ Nathaniel Card, of Han- 



Culmination: Prohibition. 127 

Chester, a member of the Society of Friends, in 
consultation with the leading temperance men of 
England. Sir W. C. Trevelyan, Bt., was made 
president of the Alliance. In the Canadian Par- 
liament, this same year, prohibition was defeated 
by but four votes. 

1851}.. In June, Connecticut, by a vote of 148 
to 61 in the House, and of 19 to 2 in the Senate, 
adopts a prohibitory law. 

In March of the same year the Legislature of 
K"ew York, by a vote of almost two to one, had en- 
acted a prohibitory law; but Governor Horatio 
Seymour, notwithstanding this vote and the ex- 
pressed will of the people, vetoed the measure, 
claiming that it was oppressive and in certain fea- 
tures unconstitutional, and that, in general, entire 
prohibition would be injurious rather than bene- 
ficial to the temperance cause. That this veto 
would be accepted as a finality by the people on 
this question was not to be expected. Their mind 
had been made up. As Horace Greeley, who did 
yeoman service in the reform, said in the Tribune : 
"What the temperance men demand is not the 
regulation of the liquor traffic, but its destruction, 



128 A Century of Drink Reform. 

not that its evils be circumscribed (idle fancy!) or 
veiled, but that they be, to the extent of the State's 
ability, uttered eradicated." 

1855. In April the Legislature of New York 
for a second time passes a prohibitory law. Ho- 
ratio Seymour is no longer in the governor's chair 
to veto this measure; but in his stead the people 
have elected Myron H. Clarke, who had been the 
able champion in the State Senate of the measure 
that perished the year before in Governor Sey- 
mour's hands. The new governor promptly signs 
the bill, and prohibition goes into effect on July 
4th of this year. On this day ten thousand people 
assemble on the magnificent estate of the Earl of 
Harrington, at Derby, England, in honor of the 
event. An English and an American oak are 
planted side by side, and a granite block is erected 
with appropriate inscription to commemorate an 
event "so important to the world." But the fruits 
of victory were soon to perish. The law was forced 
into the labyrinth of Justice, and in so doing left 
hope behind. The Court of Appeals, by a vote of 
five to three, in March, 1856, pronounces the law 
unconstitutional. The grounds of the majority de- 
cision were severely attacked by some of the most 



Culmination: Prohibition. 129 

eminent jurists in the land; the contention of the 
court being that the law made no distinction be- 
tween liquor on hand at the time, and what might 
be later acquired; holding the confiscation of the 
former to be in violation of that portion of the 
Constitution which declares that "no person shall 
be deprived of life, liberty, or property without 
due process of law" Hon. Henry Dutton, Kent 
Professor of Law in Tale, and governor of Con- 
necticut, in a review of this decison, said that if 
the depreciation of the value of an article renders 
a law unconstitutional, "then the statute-books of 
the United States and of the State of ]S5"ew York 
are full of unconstitutional laws." 

Having been thus twice balked in her fervent 
zeal to reform, the Empire State in angry and sore 
despair gave herself over to evil entirely — to this 
day. 

In June, 1855, the Legislature of New Hamp- 
shire, by a large vote, passed a prohibitory law, ap- 
plying to the sale only, not to the manufacture, 
a law that was to remain in force for near half a 
century. All IsTew England was now under pro- 
hibition. 
9 



130 A Century of Drink Keform. 

During this year also — 1855 — the first Terri- 
torial Legislature of Nebraska enacted a prohib- 
itory law. Delaware enacted a similar law. In- 
diana, after a vigorous State campaign the preced- 
ing year that resulted in the election of a temper- 
ance Legislature, likewise adopts prohibition. 
Portions of the law were declared unconstitutional 
by a majority decision of the court ; as to the valid- 
ity of the entire law the court was evenly divided. 

In addition to these, Iowa enacted a prohib- 
itory law in 1855, which was made to apply to 
spirituous liquors only, a law that remained in 
force until complete prohibition in 1884. In Wis- 
consin prohibition had been declared for by the 
people; enacted by the Legislature, and failed of 
becoming a law only by the veto of the governor, 
in 1855. Michigan, Ohio, and Illinois had abol- 
ished all license laws, the first two making it per- 
manent by embodying it in their Constitution. In 
Pennsylvania a prohibitory measure passed the 
Assembly, but was defeated by but one vote in the 
Senate. In New Jersey a similar bill was lost 
only by a tie vote. In addition to these achieve- 
ments, large portions of other States were under 



Culmination : Prohibition. 131 

no-license, through the operation of local option 
laws. 

Such was the sweep and momemtiim which the 
temperance movement had now attained. After 
all these years of labor and sacrifice, in which men 
had felt every inch of the way ; had found, fought, 
and won every successful issue, the great reform 
seemed to be nearing a consummation. John 
Marsh, the corresponding secretary^and soul — of 
the American Temperance Union since its organ- 
ization, and more closely in touch with the entire 
movement than any other man, wrote in 1855 : 
"Not a State has retracted from the high stand it 
has taken; while in other States the leaven of re- 
form is powerfully working. Indiana and Illinois 
are ready for prohibition. Nor will Pennsylvania, 
New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Texas be 
slow to follow. The North will give up, and the 
South keep not back; and men in other countries 
are already hailing and welcoming this as one of 
those great moral revolutions which occur, under 
God, in the course of ages, to root out sin and sor- 
row, and usher in millennial glories." A kind of 
expectancy prevaded the air. The priest grown 



132 A Century of Drink Keform. 

gray in the temple service of the reform was look- 
ing with eager gaze to see with his own eyes, before 
he should go hence, the salvation of God. 

At this point, with the Presidential election of 
1856, the temperance reformation was suddenly 
arrested in its progress. A cloud the size of a 
man's hand was appearing upon the horizon. It 
drew attention away from every other object. 

The anti-slavery a'gitation had been contem- 
poraneous from the beginning with the movement 
for temperance reform. The men active in the 
one had also, generally, been advocates of the other. 
"When there shall be neither a slave nor a drunk- 
ard on earth" — the language of Lincoln — was the 
vision which these men saw in the night. The 
passion for freedom and righteousness not unnatu- 
rally embraced both forms of this dual bondage. 
Conviction in the one was not less profound, nor 
the enthusiasm less intense, than in the other. The 
principles of the temperance reformation had, in 
fact, penetrated more widely, and had won a more 
general recognition than those of Abolitionism. 
Two characteristics, however, were peculiar to the 
slavery reform, which gave it at once a seeming 



Culmination: Prohibition. 133 

predominance, and brought it at last to a speedy, 
violent issue. In the first place, slavery was a 
constitutional question. All agitation was focused 
at the Nation's Capital, and the question was dyed 
as with blood into the very warp and fiber of our 
national political life. This accounts for its 
greater publicity, and also — in part at least — for 
the fact that the historian, while relating the events 
of this struggle with great minuteness of detail, 
does not even so much as make mention of the 
other. The historiographer is slow to extend his 
demesne beyond the pageant of kings and armies 
and forensic jousts. In the second place, slavery 
was a sectional question. It was this which 
brought the speedy settlement at last. The Nation 
was compelled to grapple with it for its very life. 
At first, for a number of years, the two sections 
of the country were pretty evenly divided and bal- 
anced. Then the free States began a slow ascend- 
ency in population, wealth, and power. The cen- 
sus of 1820 revealed this growing disparity, with 
a considerable majority for the North in the House 
of Representatives. The slave States had looked 
on with apprehension, and now began in earnest 



134 A Century of Dbiste: Reform. 

their struggle to maintain an equilibrium in the 
Senate. To this end the South must have more 
slave States. Upon her success in this the main- 
tenance of her very life depended. For this pur- 
pose she looked to the Territories. This, together 
with the ever-growing determination of the North 
to resist these agressions, furnishes the key to the 
history of the United States for the next forty 
years. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 was the 
beginning of the open struggle. Missouri as a 
slave State was made to offset Maine, admitted at 
the same time as a free State. Shut out from the 
North by this compromise, the slave States looked 
to the Southwest; aided in wresting Texas from 
Mexico in 1836, and by the election of Polk in 
1844 secured its admission to the Union as a slave 
State. Arkansas had in the meantime been ad- 
mitted to offset Michigan in 1836, and in 1845 
Florida to offset Iowa. To add to the slave terri- 
tory, an effort had been made, under Polk, to pur- 
chase the island of Cuba by an offer of $100,000,- 
000; but failing in that, adventurers tried fili- 
bustering, to capture and compel her to come in. 
California was admitted in 1850 as a free State, 
but only after a debate of ten months and another 



Culmination: Pkohibitiox. 135 

compromise and the enactment of the fugitive slave 
law. 

The free States now had a clear majority, and 
if they acted together might pass such legislation 
as they chose, voting slavery out of any Territory. 
To forestall this, the fatal Kansas-Nebraska Bill 
was brought forward in 1854, with its doctrine 
of popular or squatter sovereignty. Congress has 
no power to vote slavery, either in or out of the 
Territories, so it was now said. The people of the 
Territories must decide that for themselves. These 
two Territories (Kansas and Nebraska) were to be 
organized on that basis, the plan being to settle 
Kansas from the slave State of Missouri, then 
settle Nebraska from Kansas, and win both for 
slavery. The passage of this measure aroused and 
unified the anti-slavery sentiment of the North, 
and raised up a new political party committed 
against the further extension of slavery. The large 
vote, two years later only, in the Presidential elec- 
tion of 1856, for John C. Premont, the candidate 
of this party, came as a tremendous surprise, espe- 
cially to the South. It was an ill omen for the 
peace of the Union. 



136 A Century of Drink Reform. 

The heat of the controversy had been intense ; 
the long day was well wearing on ; the heavens be- 
came ominous with approaching disaster. Men 
read it Secession — Disunion, and read aright. 
Every other thought was crowded out of men's 
minds. Apprehension grew rife, and with ample 
cause, for only too soon it came — the'Dred Scott 
decision, the Kansas struggle, Harper's Ferry, an- 
other Presidential election — and the first bolt rent 
the house in twain : the heavens broke in a tempest 
of blood and desolation. 

It was Civil War ! 



B. COMPLICATION. 

The Internal Eevenue Tax, July 1, 1862. Taxation, 
137 



(I.) 

CHAPTEE IV. 
Its Meawiwg for the Government. 

That it would prove no holiday affair to sup- 
press the uprising of the South soon became evi- 
dent. The Nation was thrust into the awful throes 
of a life-and-death struggle. With the call to 
arms came also the call for the sinews of war. The 
Nation must have money, and more money. 

After the inadequate revenue measure passed 
the year before, the Internal Revenue Act, creat- 
ing a Bureau of Internal Revenue, was passed and 
approved July 1, 1862. It has been the policy of 
our Government to resort to an excise tax only as 
an expedient in circumstances of extreme urgency. 
Only twice before had such direct internal tax 
been laid — the first time just after the close of the 
Revolutionary War, and removed again under Jef- 
ferson in 1802 ; the other time during the War of 
1812, and removed soon after its close, upon recom- 
mendation by President Monroe, in 1817. But 
139 



14:0 A Century of Drixk Reform. 

these measures were as nothing compared with 
that of 1862. By this law, which went into effect 
September 1st of that year, nearly every visible 
thing or transaction was made to yield revenue. 
Among these were tobacco and liquors. In ad- 
dition to the tax upon liquor, there was a special 
license tax upon liquor dealers of all kinds — brew- 
ers, distillers, rectifiers ; wholesalers and retailers 
of spirituous, malt, and vinous liquors (except 
domestic wines free). 

A tax of twenty cents a gallon was laid on spir- 
its, which was raised to two dollars by the close of 
1861, and reduced again gradually, and fixed at 
ninety cents a gallon in 1875. Here it remained 
until the Spanish-American War, since which time 
it has been $1.10 a gallon. Malt liquors, under 
the Internal Revenue Act, were taxed one dollar 
a barrel. This was reduced temporarily to sixty 
cents in 1863, but was restored the next year, and 
fixed at one dollar. In addition to this, there was 
the special license tax upon the liquor-maker and 
liquor-dealer himself, varying in amount from 
twenty to two hundred dollars a year, according 
to the amount and kind of business done. This 



Its Meaning foe the Government. 141 

act, by laying a heavy tax upon the liquor industry 
and requiring a license fee from its chief pro- 
moters, was to add greatly, in a quite unforseen 
way, to the complexity and persistency of the drink 
question. The Nation gave to the drink business — 
a business all but outlawed when the war began — 
official recognition and sanction, and entered into a 
peculiarly close relationship with it. 

And yet the evil consequences likely to flow 
from this act were not wholly unforeseen, and this 
portion of the bill was not allowed to pass without 
a vigorous protest. Senator Henry Wilson, of 
Massachusetts, later Vice-President of the United 
States, who but a few months before had intro- 
duced the bill emancipating the slaves in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia, in moving to strike out the par- 
ticular clause licensing the liquor business, said: 
"My reason for making this motion is that I do 
not think any man in this country should have a 
license from the Federal Government to sell intoxi- 
cating liquors. I look upon the liquor-trade as 
grossly immoral, causing more evil than anything 
else in this country, and I think the Federal Gov- 
ernment ought not to derive a revenue from the 



142 A Century of Drink Reform. 

retail of intoxicating drinks. I think if this sec- 
tion remains in the bill it will have a most demoral- 
izing influence upon the country, for it will lift 
into a kind of respectability the retail trade in 
liquors. The man who has paid the Federal Gov- 
ernment twenty dollars for a license to retail ardent 
spirits will feel that he is acting under the author- 
ity of the Federal Government, and any regula- 
tion, State or municipal, interfering with him, are 
mere temporary and local arrangements that 
should yield to the authority of the Federal Gov- 
ernment. . . . Every senator knows that this 
Nation has been and is being demoralized by the 
rum traffic. Every man knows that our army of 
five or six hundred thousand in the field has been 
greatly demoralized by the sale and use of rum. 
Since this war opened we have lost thou- 
sands of live& by rum. Sir, with this Nation suf- 
fering as it is suffering by the sale of ardent spir- 
its, the Congress of the United States proposes to 
give its sanction to the traffic. I would as soon 
give my sanction to the traffic of the slave-trade 
as I would to the sale of liquors. ... I tell 
you, sir, there is not a rumseller or a friend of the 



Its Meaning eor the Government. 143 

rumseller on this continent that will not welcome 
this tax. Why, sir, it has been the struggle of the 
retailers of rum all over this country for a quarter 
of a century to adopt the license system and to get 
licensed. They have contended for it; they have 
fought for it; they have carried it to the polls; 
they have carried it into your legislative assem- 
blies; they have carried it everywhere; and now 
the Congress of the United States proposes to es- 
tablish the system rejected by many of the States 
as sanctioning crime, and to grant it to theni." 

Senator Samuel C. Porneroy, of Kansas, dur- 
ing the second day's debate on this particular 
clause, registered an equally strong protest. "Sir, 
I know that the friends of temperance throughout 
the country have everywhere labored against the 
license system. Ten years ago the senator from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Wilson) and I were members 
of the Legislature of that State, and every rum- 
seller of Boston clamored for a license. That was 
their religion, their god. If they could get a li- 
cense it was all they wanted. They deprecated 
nothing so much as being deprived of a license. 
Why? A license gives a kind of sanction to the 



144 A Century of Drink Reform. 

business, makes the traffic, which in that commu- 
nity as in almost every other is disreputable, 
popular." 

1. A tax, or specifically the Internal Revenue 
tax on liquor, means, first, permission. 

To receive money from individuals or a class 
does not always or necessarily, of course, imply an 
indorsement of their craft or profession. The 
Government levies a sum of money upon that class 
of persons, for instance, known as the highway- 
man, the counterfeiter, the embezzler, the bribe- 
giver, the wife-beater, the incendiary. It puts 
this money into its pocket without compunction. 
But it calls this levy a fine, not a tax. It exacts 
it as a penalty, not as the price of a privilege. 
It is not license (permission), but punishment. 
The levy is not made as light as possible, and col- 
lected at regular stated times and receipted for; 
but as heavy as possible, and whenever and as often 
as such person can be caught in his peculiar occu- 
pation and convicted. The aim is not to raise reve- 
nue, but to discourage and suppress such business 
as subversive of morals and of good government. 

Entirely different is it when a Government 



Its Meaning for the Government. 145 

raises money, in the form of taxes and license fees, 
for its legitimate and necessary expenditures. It 
derives this support from the legitimate industries 
of the people. Its aim and interest are not to sup- 
press, but to promote. The tax is not made more 
burdensome than the particular industry can well 
bear, and is fixed both as regards time of payment 
and the amount. And when such tax is regularly 
paid each trade will enjoy immunity from inter- 
ference or restriction. It is to the interest of the 
Government that it should prosper. In an address 
at Columbus, in 1882, John Sherman pointed out 
the practical identity of a tax and a license — Ohio 
having since 1851 constitutionally soothed her con- 
science by "taxing" the liquor business, but not "li- 
censing" it. "A tax on a trade or occupation im- 
plies a permission to follow that trade or occupa- 
tion. We do not tax a crime. We prohibit and pun- 
ish it. We do not share in the profits of a larceny ; 
but by a tax we do share in the profits of liquor- 
selling, and therefore allow or license it." 

2. A tax implies, secondly, protection. 

When a trade or business is taxed for the sup- 
port of the Government, it follows that such trade 
10 



146 A Cejntuhy of Deink Reform. 

is entitled to tlie benefits of government, one of 
whose very first functions is that of protection. 
In levying and receiving a tax the Government 
makes a pledge of service. The former as a right 
is inseparably linked with the latter as a duty. 
That Government which, after collecting taxes 
from one class of its citizens, would refuse to give 
them the fullest protection in their business, would 
be as deficient in morals as a tyrant who makes no 
pretense of being bound by considerations of right, 
or a villain who goes squarely back on his assured 
promises and decamps as soon as the money is in 
his possession. Every taxed or properly taxable 
business or enterprise, the Government must, by 
every principle of justice and in very self -consist- 
ency, extend to it protection from molestation and 
guard it in its right to exist and prosper. 

With respect to the liquor-trade the United 
States Government has not been consistently true 
to this principle. When it collects a tax from the 
liquor-seller it protects him from molestation only 
so far as its own punitive machinery is concerned. 
Beyond this it leaves him to the tender mercies of 
local caprice and the vengeance of the State. Thus 



Its Meaning for the Gover^oie^t. 147 

when a man engages (with proper precaution) in 
the sale of liquor in a prohibition State or a no- 
license town, while he will suffer no interference 
from the Government, if he has paid the Federal 
tax and holds a Federal permit, neither has he any 
redress at the hands of the Government if the local 
authorities pounce upon him, confiscate his stock 
of liquors and cast him into prison. 

We have this anomalous condition, then, that a 
constable or village official may destroy one of the 
legitimate, taxable industries of a community, an 
industry upon which the Xation depends largely 
for its revenue ; and may throw a man into prison 
for engaging in a business which the Government 
said was a proper business and one he might engage 
in. There is a fault somewhere in the logic of this 
policy. It is not so known elsewhere. In the di- 
vision of governmental functions between Federal, 
State, county, township, municipal, and village 
authority in all other things there is no such con- 
flict of power or jurisdiction. Each is supreme 
in its sphere. It would seem as if the Government 
should do one of two things: (1) If it claims the 
right to tax the liquor-traffic it should exercise 



148 A Century of Drink Reform. 

toward that traffic the power of complete protec- 
tion, denying to the States the right to vex or pro- 
hibit; or (2), If the Government yields to the 
States the exclusive right to regulate the liquor- 
traffic, it should keep its own hands off, and with- 
draw from the business the prestige and support 
of Federal sanction. But who is sufficient for 
these things ? 

However, the principle of protection, though 
somewhat confused in its application, is still true 
even here ; for let the liquor-seller pay his Federal 
tax and hang up his Federal permit, and pay his 
State or local license fee and frame and hang up 
his "Licensed to sell," and no power on earth dare 
molest him. Though a man's brain be set on fire 
by the liquor he sells, and he in turn go home and 
fire his house, or his neighbor's, or kill his friend 
in a brawl, or his wife or children, though the cause 
may be clearly traced to the liquor that he drank, 
yet the man who gave him that liquor not only 
escapes punishment, but is protected in his right 
to sell more. If any crank or zealot should enter 
that saloon to smash, because it is a source of evil 
and crime, he would receive but short shrift. 



Its Meaistijstg for the Government. 149 

Because, therefore, trie liquor-trade pays spe- 
cial revenue and license taxes to trie State and 
Nation, it receives their protection to carry on this 
trade: which is just and right. 

3. A tax, or specifically the Internal Revenue 
tax on liquor, involves, thirdly, partnership. 

To give sanction and protection to any busi- 
ness, and to share proportionally in its profits, is 
to become, in a sense, a party to that business. 
Above any other industry in the land is this true 
of the liquor-trade, with reference both to the ex- 
tent to which the Nation shares in the profits of 
this trade, and the peculiarly elaborate and pains- 
taking methods which the Nation employs to as- 
certain and collect its share of these profits. Tak- 
ing these in turn : 

(1) Extent. — For the year — or rather ten 
months — ending June 30, 1863, the first year the 
Internal Revenue law was in effect, the Govern- 
ment received from the liquor-trade seven million 
dollars out of a total internal revenue that year 
of forty-one millions from all sources, or about 
17 per cent. That percentage was at once in- 
creased by the increase in the tax on spirits. When 



ISO A Century ve 1>bixk Kefobm. 

the war was over the other industries were one by 
one relieved of their special taxes, except only the 
liquor industry (and tobacco), in whose profits 
the Government shared in ever-increasing propor- 
tion. Thus during the decade of the seventies 
50 per cent on the average of all internal revenue 
wa s derived from the liquoHrade. In the next 
decade it rose to 70 per cent on an annual average : 
while during the year ending June 30, 1897, the 
last year before the special Spanish War tax went 
into effect, 78 per cent of all internal reven ue axes 
laid by our Government came from the traffic in 
strong drink. Or taking the entire receipts of the 
United States Government, from all sources, for 
the year ending June 30, 1900, for instance, in- 
cluding the Internal Revenue tax ($295,3 l 7 % 7 , 
customs revenue on imports ($233,164,871 . 
postal service (§1 i . ■: 4^57 9 >, and all miscellane- 
ous items, such as profits on coinage, bullion de- 
posits and assays, consular and patent fees, sale of 
public and Indian lands, tax on national banks, et 
($38,748,054), the total receipts aggregated $669,- 
595,431, of which sum $185,183,657 (Internal 
B enue tax on liquors, $177,137,992; duties on 



Its Meaning eor the Government. 151 

wines and liquors imported, $8,045,655), or 27.6 
per cent was received from the trade in strong 
drink. 

Thus for a Government to share so largely in 
the profits of the liquor-trade as to derive more 
than one-fourth of its entire income from that 
source, means that it stands in closer relationship 
with this particular one, than with any other of 
its industries. 

(2) Method. — The Government shows an 
eagerness to secure its share of the profits of the 
liquor-trade unknown in the case of any other busi- 
ness or industry. 

The entire Internal Revenue Department has 
for years had scarcely anything to do other than 
to watch the ledger of the liquor business. The 
commissioner of internal revenue at Washington, 
receiving a salary equal to that of the treasurer 
of the United States ; the chief clerk, deputy com- 
missioner, solicitor; the more than threescore col- 
lectors assigned to the different districts in the 
Union ; the nearly one thousand deputy collectors ; 
clerks, surveyors, gangers, and storekeepers as- 
signed to the distilleries in the different localities — 



152 A Century of Drink Keeorm. 

all are kept busy looking after the trade, now in- 
specting plans and buildings, now measuring and 
gauging the liquor in vats, now tending the ware- 
house ("keeping store") and waiting on the pro- 
prietor when he wants his goods, now — and 
chiefly — going over accounts and figuring profits. 
Each brewer and distiller must make a monthly 
report. Books must be kept open for inspection 
by the Gevernment agent. Every manufacturer 
of stills must give notice of each still made, and 
the name of the person who is to use it. If a dis- 
tillery is to be built a minute plan must be sub- 
mitted to the commissioner and collector, who may 
make any change they see fit. The Government 
agent has the keys to the distillery, and may enter 
any time of the day or night. The receiving cis- 
tern is under his lock and key, and by his per- 
mission alone can spirits be withdrawn. When 
the products of the distillery have been placed in 
the warehouse in bond, the Government furnishes 
a storekeeper ; and when the liquor is withdrawn, 
to enter upon its mission in society, this store- 
keeper is on hand to collect the Nation's share on 
each gallon and barrel, and to paste on each cask 



Its Meaning for the Government. 153 

and flask, as it goes out, the Federal trade-mark, 
the sovereign people's "0. K." This is not meant 
as a guarantee that the stuff is good for man to 
drink, but means simply that the tax has been paid, 
and therefore it may flow unmolested. 

The liquor interests have not failed to make use 
of this intimacy of the United States Government 
with their business. In a full-page advertisement 
of a certain brand of whisky recently in several of 
the foremost publications of the country we have 
this assuring announcement in large headlines, 
"Uncle Sam says it 's all right." After which 
follows this information: "Uncle Sam, in the per- 
son of Ten of his Government Officials, has charge 
of every department of our distillery. During the 
entire process of distillation, after the whisky is 
stored in barrels in our warehouses, during the 
seven years it remains there, from the very grain 
we buy to the whisky you get, Uncle Sam is con- 
stantly on the watch to see that everything is all 
right." The zeal of our great Government is faith- 
fully depicted here. It must not be supposed, how- 
ever, that the object of this zeal is the well-being 
of the public. Uncle Sam is not after purity and 



154 A Cextfey or Dhdte: Eefoe^i. 

peace an g citizenship, but after money. It 
is when he receives this that he iuds his voice and 
says. "I: "s all right." 

This :rade. Therefore. :ha; filches millions each 
year from the pockets of the people, and gives them 
nothing in return — no bread for either body or 
soul, no clothes, no comforts : but instead, conten- 
tion and sorrow, want and woe — our Government 
has become a jealous partner in this business, and 
has given to it the influence of its great name, be- 
cause :he business is — illiug geuerouslv :: d 
with it its easily and ill-gotten gain. 

4. A tax. or specincally :he Intern;! Revenue 
tax on liquor, involves, lastly. 

The sphere of government is not merely the 
passive function of collecting revenue and shield- 
ing its citizens in the enjoyment of their rights — 
taxation and protection. It must assist in promot- 
ing the welfare of its people by stimulating their 
industries, facilitating their commerce, and extend- 
ing their markets. This is what any good govern- 
rnent constantly aims to do. By patents, for in- 
stance, it seeks to encourage invention; by copy- 
rights, to stimulate literature and art: through its 



Its Meaning foe the Government. 155 

consular service, to learn the condition and needs 
of the foreign market, with a view to facilitating 
export trade and the expansion of its own in- 
dustries. 

This is the one thing a government has con- 
stantly in mind when it levies its taxes. It is this 
which makes the question of taxation, seemingly 
simple, so intricate and difficult a problem. The 
Government needs money. It levies a tax rate 
upon the country's wealth-producing industries. 
But how and where shall the tax be laid ? Shall 
it be a direct tax upon persons, or incomes, or cap- 
ital, or land ? Or an indirect tax upon articles 
of consumption ? Shall the tax be laid upon the 
necessaries of life, or upon its luxuries ? Shall 
each pay according to the benefits he enjoys from 
the Government, or according to his ability to 
pay ? Shall equality of taxation mean equality of 
sacrifice, or equality in the amount actually paid ? 

The statesman who sets himself to work out a 
tax budget for his people will find these questions 
anything but trifling. Let him have a care lest 
in taxing thrift and enterprise and economy, a 
premium be put upon idleness and improvidence ; 



156 A Cz^ttey or i^3i Ezjop.m. 

or in taxing necessities, the burden be put upon 
those who consume most and are least able to pay; 
or in taxing forms of wealth easily concealed, those 
inclined to be dishonest make false returns and 
e scape their just proportion of taxes, while those 
who are truthful pay more than their share. And 
above alL there must be no discrimination, as in 
the tariff rates or special privileges, in favor of 
any one industry as against another. The reason 
for the frequent change of financial policy in the 
United States ifi that the people have believed these 
very inequalities and discriminations x exist 
The pledged purpose of our Government is to "pro- 
mote the general welfare," which is to be accom- 
plished by promoting impartially all its legitimate 
individual industries. 

The one industry that concerns us here is the 
drink trade. In taxing this trade, has our Nation 
been true to this principle of just govern men:. ; 
has the drink trade suffered retrogression because 
of unjustly high taxes and harsh restrictions? 
Whatever our Government may or may not have 
done, it has compiled statistics which show that 
the liquor industry, from the time the Internal 



Its Meaning for the Government. 157 

Revenue tax went into effect, has enjoyed contin- 
uous and increasing prosperity in every respect — 
(a), as to the amount of capital invested; (b), as 
to the quantity of liquor produced; (c), as to the 
value of the product. 

(a) 

capital invested in the manufacture of liquor 

in the united states. 

(From the United States census bulletin.) 

CENSUS SPIRITS MALT LIQUORS WINES 

1850 $5,409,334 $4,072,380 $ 

1860 12,445,675 15,782,342 306,300 

1870 15,545,116 48,779,435 2,334,394 

1880 24,247,595 91,208,224 2,581,910 

1890 31,006,178 232,471,290 5,792,783 

1900 32,551,604 415,284,438 9,838,015 

(b) 

PRODUCTION OF LIQUOR IN THE UNITED STATES SINCE 
THE INTERNAL REVENUE ACT. 

(Average annual, by decades.) 

YEAR ENDING GALLONS 

JUNE 30 SPIRITS MALT LIQUORS 

1863-1870 37,000,000 152,000,000 

1870-1880 60,000,000 308,000,000 

1880-1890 75,000,000 646,000,000 

1890-1900 83,000,000 1,079,000,000 

The figures here given are not for the separate 
years of the census, as in the preceding schedule, 



158 A Ce^itey of Deixk Eeeoe^i. 

but represent an average annual for the ten years 
of each decade. The production of spirits fluctuates 
so greatly from year to year that the figures for 
any one year "would not give a correct idea of the 
real ratio of increase. In the production of malt 
liquors, however, there has been no such fluctua- 
tion, the growth of that industry having been regu- 
lar, and, as may be observed, rapid. Both as re- 
gards the amount of capital invested, and the 
product put out, this latter industry has about 
doubled itself every ten years. Again, the statis- 
tics in the United States reports for any one year 
represent in reality neither the production of liq- 
uors for that year, nor the consumption, but the 
quantity that has been withdrawn from ware- 
houses, under government supervision, for pur- 
poses of consumption, and upon which the tax 
has been paid. Yet in the long run the quantity 
produced each year will about equal the quantity 
consumed; so that the average annual figures for a 
period of ten years, as given in the schedule, will 
represent, with a fair degree of accuracy, the con- 
sumption of liquor for that year. 

Wines are not included in this schedule. The 



Its Meaetbtg for the Goyekxmext. 159 

wine industry does not figure prominently in goY- 
ernment reports; is not usually giYen at all. It 
pays no tax, except a customs duty upon wines 
imported. 

Taking now the average annual consumption 
per capita for our entire population, of all kinds 
of liquor, during the last three decades, we haYe 



these figures 

AVERAGE 




GALLONS 




AXisUAL. 


WINES 


SPIRITS 


MALT LIQUORS 


1870-1880 


.55 


1,40 


6.91 


1880-1890 


.48 


1.34 


11.19 


3890-1900 


.38 


1.25 


15.47 



Whatever else these figures may show, they 
demonstrate that taxation has not affected the 
liquor industry adversely. The slight decrease in 
the per capita consumption of spirits can not be 
justly laid to taxation, for malt liquors are heaYily 
taxed, and they haYe more than doubled on our 
rapidly increasing population ; while wines, which 
are not taxed at all, show a larger percentage of 
decrease than spirits. The causes for this must 
be looked for elsewhere. 



160 A Century of Drixk Refobm. 

(c) 

VALUE OF THE LIQUOR PRODUCTS OF THE UNITED 
STATES. 

(From the U. S. Census Bulletin.) 



CENSUS 


SPIRITS 


31 ALT LIQUORS 


WINES 


1850 


$15,770,240 
30,936,585 


$5,728,568 




1860 


21,310,933 


$400,791 


1870 


36,191,133 


55,706,643 


2,225,238 


1880 


41,063,663 


101,058,385 


2,169,193 


1890 


104,197,869 


182,731,622 


2,846,148 


1900 


96,798,443 


237,269,713 


6,547,310 



But all this is as vet only negative proof of 
our proposition that a tax, or specifically, the in- 
ternal revenue tax on liquor, involves promotion. 
These statistics show merely that under the policy 
of taxation the liquor business has been promoted. 
That this has been done primarily by those en- 
gaged in the trade, whose financial interests are 
bound up with that trade, is, of course, to be as- 
sumed. But we want to know what hand, if any, 
the Federal Government has also had in it. 

That the Government should have had a part 
in facilitating and fostering the growth of the 
liquor trade is what we would expect, to begin 
with. This not in a general way merely (the liquor 
trade being one of the nation's legitimate indus- 



Its Meaning for the Government. 161 

tries) , but in a special way and for a special rea- 
son, for has not the Government a special financial 
interest in this particular branch of its industries ? 
Does not more than one-fourth of its entire sup- 
port come out of it ? The feathered creature that 
can lay such golden eggs, and lay them regularly, 
and without pain, apparently, deserves some spe- 
cial care. No other legitimate industry in the 
country can yield such revenue and prosper. And 
to find a good and legitimate trade that can do this 
— and we must believe that the trade in strong 
drink is a good business, or the Government would 
not get its living off it — wise statesmanship will 
see to it that special care be given to promote it. 

And this has been done. It is only the policy 
of taxation consistently carried out. Its logic can 
not be questioned, therefore. 

The Bureau of Internal Revenue is the point 
of contact between the nation and the liquor trade. 
Through this bureau repeated expressions of 
friendship and solicitude have been conveyed to 
the trade. Through this bureau the Government 
has been officially represented at a number of the 
gatherings of liquor men. At the fifth United 
11 



162 A Ce^tttjey of Dki^k Eefokm. 

States Brewers' Congress, held in Baltimore, in 
1865, Internal Revenue Commissioner Wells was 
present and said : "It is the desire of the Govern- 
ment to be thoroughly informed of the require- 
ments of the trade, and I will give information on 
all questions, in order to bring about a cordial un- 
derstanding between the Government and the 
trade." Subsequent events show that such cordial 
understanding has been both brought about and 
maintained during these many years. 

At the eleventh Brewers' Congress, held in 
Pittsburg, in 1871, the president of that body said 
that he hailed it as an encouraging sign that the 
Government was being represented at their meet- 
ings. Mr. Louis Schade, of the Internal Revenue 
Bureau, was present to address the convention 
and to report their proceedings. At the Brewers' 
Congress the next year, in Xew York, the Internal 
Revenue Bureau had two representatives present, 
who assured the convention that "the brewing in- 
dustry is receiving attention in the office of Inter- 
nal Revenue that it has never received before." 
Two representatives were likewise present at 
Cleveland, in 1873. When the Brewers' Congress 



Its Meaning for the Government. 163 

met in Milwaukee, in 1877, the commissioner of 
internal revenue stated the situation exactly when 
he wrote to the convention: "I am glad to learn 
that the conduct of this bureau has been satisfac- 
tory to such an important body of tax-payers as 
the brewers of the United States, and I trust that 
nothing will occur to disturb the friendly relations 
now existing between this office and your associa- 
tion." The next year, in Baltimore, the same com- 
missioner was present in person. At the Brewers' 
Congress in Washington, in 1890, the head of the 
Internal Revenue Bureau was again present. "Our 
business relations for the last year," he said in ad- 
dressing the convention, "have been quite exten- 
sive, and I may say — speaking for the officers of 
the Commission of Internal Revenue — that they 
have been of a pleasant character. In order that 
they may continue so, and that the pleasant fea- 
ture of the connection may as far as possible be 
increased, it is very desirable that the commis- 
sioner should know you all personally, and that, 
personally, he should know your wishes. . . . 
You are all business men engaged in a lawful busi- 
ness, and entitled to pursue that business untram- 



164 A Century of Drink Keform. 

meled by any regulation of the office of the com- 
missioner of internal revenue, except in so far 
as may be necessary for the purpose of collecting 
the revenue." 

To the principle expressed in this address the 
Government has been consistently true. It im- 
poses no regulations whatever upon the liquor 
business except as they relate to the "collecting of 
the revenue." In no prohibition State or no-license 
town, where people have said that they did not 
want the business, does the Government lend its 
influence to suppress it. In fact, the Government 
encourages the business. 

In some remote town, for instance, the fathers 
and mothers have determined that their sons and 
daughters shall be brought up free from the in- 
fluence of the saloon ; that the community shall be 
peaceable and orderly, and a good place to live in. 
After a hard struggle and much sacrifice they have 
carried the day, and liquor-selling in that place 
must now cease. The community is bent on exer- 
cising in this particular its full privilege of home 
rule. 

The officials proceed to carry out the wish of 



Its Meaning foe the Government. 165 

the people, and enforce the law. They are suc- 
ceeding — or seem to be — reasonably well. Some 
saloons have bowed to the inevitable and closed en- 
tirely; others have taken to the dark. The saloon 
business is severely crippled and would die, if only 
the strong arm of federal law would but come to 
the assistance at this point and administer the 
stroke of mercy. Will the Government do it ? The 
liquor business is in sore straits. It is outlawed, 
and has no standing in the community. The fed- 
eral permit, too, has run out now. Will the Fed- 
eral Government, the only remaining partner in 
the business, now help to enforce the law to the 
extent at least of withholding from the outlawed 
business a renewal of its permit ? Alas ! our great 
and good Government, since the days of the tax- 
ing, has lost the power of moral discernment as 
touching the things that pertain to the drink traf- 
fic. It can scarcely discern between its right hand 
and its left. It mutters but one word — Revenue. 
The saloon-keeper is aware of this fact, in this 
particular village. He is afraid of the local au- 
thorities, but he is more afraid of the United States 
authorities, to sell without their sanction, for these 



166 A Ce^tuet of Deiste: Refoem. 

have a swift and drastic way of dealing with any 
who may be found selling without a permit. So 
the man applies to the collector of revenue for his 
district, for a permit to sell liquor. The Govern- 
ment does not refuse — it never refuses. It may be 
said of our Government in this respect, as was said 
upon the tombstone of a certain saloon-keeper, "He 
had a pleasant smile for everybody." The man in 
this case pays his twenty-five dollars, gets his re- 
ceipt, and the Government promises to keep its 
hands off. 

With but one source of danger now to watch, 
the saloonkeeper is willing to take his chances. He 
begins to sell, in the dark, of course. Drunkards 
are now seen occasionally on the street again; it 
becomes a matter of common talk that liquor is be- 
ing sold. There may be an occasional conviction, 
but that is hard to get, and unpleasant and expen- 
sive for those who prosecute. But even a fine will 
not stop the selling ; there is such profit in liquor, 
he can afford to pay. The amount sold will be 
magnified by those opposed to the law, and disaf- 
fection will spread. At the next election the tem- 
perance people will probably have hard work to 



Its Meaning foe the Government. 167 

carry no-license again ; or if they do succeed, it is 
likely to be by a narrow margin, only to be beaten 
the year following. Liquor had been sold anyway, 
people had argued. There had been drunkenness 
and disorder, constant contention and strife, and 
the town got no revenue ; this carried the day for 
license. This is the actual history of a majority 
of the towns in the United States that have ever 
tried to put no-license into operation. 

Of the several factors that enter into the situa- 
tion we wish here to point out only one, this, 
namely: If the United States Government had 
not, in defiance of the local law, entered into con- 
nivance with the saloon-keepers and given them en- 
couragement, by promise of immunity, those sa- 
loon-keepers would not have dared to sell liquor. 
Consequently, next to the man who stands behind 
the bar, the United States Government stands as 
the chief promoter of this entire business. 

The Government practices this same code of 
ethics in every State, district, municipality, and 
town that is under prohibition. Any one wishing 
to sell the contraband article need but to apply 
to the Internal Revenue office, inclosing always 



168 A Centuky of Dkink Eeform. 

the twenty-five dollars, and he will receive the Gov- 
ernment's written sanction by return mail, and no 
questions will be asked. And while the local offi- 
cers of the law are trying to find out the lawbreak- 
ers, the agent that acts for the United States could 
name them by name. 

Then every twelvemonth all these receipts are 
duly set down in the official report of the com- 
missioner of internal revenue, as among the na- 
tion's assets. It will be recorded, for instance, 
that in Kansas, where the citizens are struggling to 
keep the decivilizing drug out, there were during 
the fiscal year ending June 30, 1901, one rectifier, 
2,756 retail liquor dealers, eighteen wholesale liq- 
our dealers, three brewers, 308 retail dealers in malt 
liquors. Which means simply that from this num- 
ber the Government received money, and in turn 
issued permits. Some of these may have sold oifly 
a small fraction of the year, and then been thrown 
into prison, or otherwise driven out of their busi- 
ness by the vigilance of State or local officers. But 
the Government puts them all down as so many 
persons doing a full liquor business; furnishing 
material in so doing, for those who are constantly 
disparaging the labors of temperance and order. 



Its Meaning for the Government. 169 

These things the United States Government 
does through, its legislative and executive arms, 
while over against this stands the solemn declara- 
tion of its highest judicial tribunal, to this effect : 
"By the general concurrence of opinion of every 
civilized and Christian community, there are few 
sources of crime and misery to society equal to the 
dramshop, where intoxicating liquors, in small 
quantities, to be drunk at the time, are sold in- 
discriminately to all parties applying. The statis- 
tics of every State show a greater amount of crime 
and misery attributable to the use of ardent spirits 
obtained at these retail liquor saloons than to any 
other source. To retail intoxicating liquors is not 
an inherent right in a citizen of the United States 
or of a State; and any State, in the exercise of 
its police power, may prohibit the traffic therein 
entirely." 

Verily, while the voice sounds like Jacob's, the 
hands are unmistakably the hands of Esau! 

Not only in the promotion of its trade at home 
has the liquor business received aid from the Fed- 
eral Government; it has received aid from the 
same source in the promotion of trade abroad. It 



/ 



170 A Cextuey of Dri^k Eefoem. 

was but a few years ago that the Secretary of State 
at Washington sent a note to our consuls in the 
Central and South American States, ordering 
them to make inquiry in their respective districts, 
of the conditions with reference to the drinking 
habits of the people, and the means of supply, and 
of the requirements necessary for a successful ex- 
port liquor trade from this country. , And when, 
with the going out of the century, our nation en- 
tered upon new paths ; when, in the exigencies of 
war, we entered upon a career of foreign territorial 
expansion, justifying this course and assuming* 
this responsibility in the name of civilization and 
commerce, — the first branch of American com- 
merce to receive the benefits of such expansion, 
the first agency of civilization to be brought into 
play, was the liquor trade. In spite of the declara- 
tion of such men as President Schurman, of Cor- 
nell University, the chairman of the first Philip- 
pine Commission, that the American saloon did 
us more harm there in the beginning than anything 
else — the Filipino children staggering when they 
played mock Americans — still of all trades, this 
was the one most conspicuously to follow the flag 



Its Meaning for the Government. 171 

and to receive the protection and fostering care of 
that flag. Thus, during the first full year of ex- 
pansion, for the year ending June 30, 1899, the 
exports of liquor of domestic manufacture from 
the United States increased eighty per cent, the 
largest percentage of increase of any American 
export; the exports of agricultural implements 
coming next, with an increase of 63.3 per cent for 
that same year. 

These things have raised a storm of indigna- 
tion and protest among temperance people all over 
the land. But why ? We do not- complain here 
because the Government protects and promotes the 
liquor trade. We have simply shown that this fol- 
lows logically and justly the principle of taxation. 
Granted the right of a nation to tax a trade regu- 
larly for its support, and the nation is in duty 
bound to do just what our nation is doing toward 
the trade in strong drink. 



(H) 

CHAPTEE V. 
Its Mea^ixg for the Liquor Trade. 

The Internal Revenue tax has added to the 
complexity and persistency of the drink problem, 
in the second place, in that it led directly to a 
thorough organization of the liquor business, for 
the purpose (1) of promoting its own efficiency 
and productiveness, and (2) of forming a power 
to resist legislative aggression. Out of the first 
has come the great growth and present wealth of 
the liquor business ; out of the second has come 
the liquor "power 75 that has played so large a part 
in the subsequent politics of the nation. We will 
look at these in turn. 

I. The levy of a heavy federal tax, in 1862, 
marked a radical change in the methods of busi- 
ness and in the forms of development of the entire 
liquor industry. Promiscuous liquor-selling now 
ceased. With small capital and indifferent busi- 
ness methods the liquor trade now became unprofit- 
172 



Its Meaning for the Liquor Trade. 173 

able, or impossible. Liquor had hitherto been 
plentiful and cheap. There were numerous small 
stills throughout the country, and no large capital 
was invested. As to the brewing industry, that 
was yet in its infancy. 

But now there came a change. The grocery 
store vending liquors, and others engaged in the 
trade in a small way, either had to abandon it, or 
go into it as a business — with all that that implies. 
Many did quit. The rest proceeded to enlarge 
the business. First, more capital became neces- 
sary, and with it a more intelligent organization 
and management of the business. A larger invest- 
ment of capital, in turn, required a larger income ; 
which required larger sales, which made necessary 
the extension of the trade. 

Then came in competition. This reacted upon 
the business as a further stimulus. There was a 
yet larger investment of capital, with correspond- 
ingly better facilities for production, and a yet 
greater vigilance in pushing the trade and finding 
markets. It was now that the economic formula, 
that demand creates supply, became reversed, and 
the supply was made to create a demand. "Mine 



174 A Century of Driste: Reform. 

host' of the tavern and inn of former days disap- 
peared, and with liiin went hospitality and sim- 
plicity. The drink-seller, now more and more of 
foreign birth, still had a pleasant smile for his 
customers, but it lasted only usually as long as 
the money lasted. Avarice had become his impell- 
ing power. 

He no longer waited for customers to come in ; 
he proceeded to draw them in. "Ice-cold," thirst- 
provoking signs were made to allure the oppressed 
in hot weather. A "Hot Tom and Jerry/' per- 
haps, would draw thither the feet of the shivering 
in winter. What signs could not do, a smile would, 
and a personal invitation, with a free drink and 
a free lunch — of pickled codfish, red herring, and 
salted pretzels ; for once awaken a thirst for liquor, 
and like licentiousness, it never goes backward. 
Start a saloon to-day in the most temperate com- 
munity, and give it free course, and it will build 
up a good trade. 

Saloons now occupied corner blocks, and were 
elaborately furnished. They were made attrac- 
tive, to attract. Expensive plate mirrors were in- 
troduced — there ?s a charm about a mirror. At- 



Its MeajstjTO for the Liquor Trade. 175 

tractive paintings, usually the figure of a woman 
in gauze drapery, or other costume calculated to 
interest men, now greeted the eye on entering. 
The light became brighter, and the screens darker. 
Music was brought in as an adjunct to the busi- 
ness, and not infrequently, mingled with the 
strains of music and the clink of glasses, were 
heard the peals of woman's laughter, — she, too, 
brought in to attract custom. The drinking place 
remained either just plain "saloon," or became 
"sample room," or "palace," or maybe, "Pete's 
Place," just as might suit the tastes and conceits 
of each particular class of customers. 

Now all this was made to serve but one end — 
light, screens, mirrors, music, pictures, games, free 
lunch, family entrance, — namely, to sell liquor. 
The frequent lavish displays of wealth, also, such 
as paving the saloon floor with silver dollars, looked 
to the same end. It sought either to introduce 
some striking novelty, or more generally, to main- 
tain for the business an imposing respectability 
which is suffering constant peril. The aim is the 
same — to sell liquor. This sole motive, born first 
of necessity, received ever new impulse from the 



176 A Century of Drink Reform. 

very stimulus of success. The entire business was 
now driven with an energy and a wantonness un- 
known in former days, or in the methods of any 
other pursuit. 

To this vigilance and enterprise of the liquor 
industry must be laid chiefly the increase in the 
consumption of strong drink in this country within 
the last generation. Our large foreign immigra- 
tion during this period has had something to do 
with it, of course; but nothing less than the ag- 
gressive spirit of the business itself, first awak- 
ened by the tax, could have brought it about that, 
in spite of the growing sentiment of temperance 
throughout the land, and the increase in the num- 
ber of no-license towns and districts, the per capita 
consumption of malt liquors, for instance, should 
have more than doubled on our rapidly increasing 
population. Besides, total abstinence is by no 
means unknown among our foreign-born popula- 
tion. 

Another change in the organization of the 
liquor business is to be noted. As is inevitably the 
case with a growing business when competition 
is felt, the drink business has moved toward con- 
solidation, the actual ownership and wealth pass- 



Its Meaning foe the Liquor Trade. 177 

ing into fewer and fewer hands. The weak have 
been eliminated or absorbed by the strong, who 
thereby have become yet stronger. Thus, accord- 
ing to the census, there were in the United States, 
in 1870, 1,972 establishments for the manufac- 
ture of malt liquor; in 1890 there were 1,509. 
The capital invested on the other hand, increased 
from forty-nine millions in 1870, to over four 
hundred and fifteen millions in 1890. In the dis- 
tillery business the same tendency has been mani- 
fest, though perhaps in a somewhat less degree. 

ISTot only has the manufacture of liquors passed 
into fewer hands, but the retailing business, also 
has passed largely into the same hands. Probably 
from one-half to two-thirds of the saloons to-day 
are owned by, and run in the interests of, brewers 
and wholesalers. These latter buy the building, 
put in the fixtures, furnish the liquor, pay the 
taxes and license; while the saloon-keeper is only 
a kind of employee. Such organization and push- 
ing from behind has doubtless planted many a 
saloon where there would otherwise have been 
none, and thus promoted the sale and consumption 
of liquor. 
12 



178 A Century of Drink Reform. 

Thus has the liquor business, by its compact- 
ness and efficiency of organization under the stim- 
ulus of taxation, attained prosperity and wealth 
and power. 

II. The Internal Revenue tax of 1862 led, in 
the second place, to the banding together of the 
liquor interests for purposes of mutual defense 
against legislative encroachments. Israel con- 
quered Canaan because the latter was made up of 
a number of petty and independent kingdoms that 
offered no united resistance. Before the war, the 
liquor industry was in many hands, and was car- 
ried on usually in a small way. Small stills were 
numerous, license fees were practically nothing, 
whisky was cheap, and the investments of capital 
were small. There was no organization or bond 
of union ; no power to wield, therefore, or to fear. 
Consequently, when Maine began the decade of 
the fifties with a prohibitory law, other States fol- 
lowed and promptly passed similar laws, upon a 
simple expression of popular sentiment. There 
was no hesitancy by first calculating political con- 
sequences, on the part of legislator or politician. 
The liquor trade, from its very nature not much 
respected, was also not yet feared. It had not yet 



Its Meanixg for the Liquor Trade. 179 

found its voice, or become a factor to be reckoned 
with in politics. 

With the Internal Revenue Act of 1862 all 
this was changed. On November 12, of that same 
year, less than three months after the law went 
into effect, thirty-four members of the brewing 
trade met in Pythagoras Hall, on Canal Street, 
ISTew York, and organized the United States Brew- 
ers' Association. "Unity is Strength," the tempo- 
rary president suggested as a good motto for their 
meeting. An agitation committee was appointed to 
correspond with the Internal Revenue Bureau, and 
a deputation soon afterwards visited Washington. 
In spite of the money needs of the Government 
at that time, they succeeded in getting the beer 
tax reduced, the following March, from one dollar 
to sixty cents, on the barrel. A year later, now 
without serious protest by the brewing interests, 
the tax of one dollar was restored. At the Brew- 
ers' Congress of 1864, in Milwaukee, the agitation 
committee was made permanent, and deputations 
to Washington became a regular feature of the 
work of the association. This was the beginning 
of the liquor lobby at the nation's capital. 



180 A Century of Drink Reform. 

But the liquor interests soon learned that they 
had no real hostility to fear from the Government. 
The tax had been levied, as it had been upon other 
articles, simply as a war necessity. In a very few 
years, in fact, it became apparent that the Gov- 
ernment was enjoying the revenue from this source 
so well as to make it unlikely that any really hos- 
tile measures would ever be contemplated. The 
frequent presence, and friendly addresses of the 
officials of the Internal Revenue Bureau at the 
Brewers' Congresses, gave assurance to the same 
end. The tax, so far, was found not to have hurt 
the business any. It was only necessary to raise 
the price, for experience showed that those who 
drank would buy anyhow. 

From its first work of protest, the organized 
liquor power now turned toward the exercise of 
congressional surveillance, to guard against any 
possible future legislative aggression. Such watch- 
fulness was not wholly unwarranted. For while 
the Government has been friendly and intimate 
even, it has not always been moved by generous 
or manly sentiment in its dealings with the liquor 
business. Where genuine respect is wanting, 



Its Meaning for the Liquoe Trade. 181 

coupled with desire, this is perhaps to be expected. 
The drink business soon proved so willing a part- 
ner and protege, genial and growing rich, that the 
Government, an intimate associate in the business, 
with access to the books and the safe, has not al- 
ways been free from the temptation to stretch its 
hands a little too far. This the assertion and self- 
respect of the organized liquor power has repelled 
through its point of chief impact upon the Gov- 
ernment, the liquor lobby at Washington. Tet 
this has not angered the Government, and led it 
to an attitude of hostility. For this rebuke to its 
presumption, this resentment of its undue liber- 
ties, it has been led to think rather more pro- 
foundly of the liquor power. In this way the at- 
mosphere was cleared, and a mutual understand- 
ing established, — a relation that, according to the 
annual protestations of both sides, remains cordial 
to this day. 

The nation's capital, however, though the first 
scene of protest by the organized liquor interests, 
has not been the chief field of their activity. The 
Government happily avoids offense by shifting the 
whole vexatious temperance question upon the 



182 A Century oe Drink Reform. 

States. Many of the States, following a like policy 
of evasion, through ostensibly liberal local option 
laws shift it upon the individual towns and munic- 
ipalities. It is in these State and local campaigns 
that the liquor power does its most telling work. 
This is done by the employment of a single agency, 
a very potent factor in determining the course of 
politics — namely, money, judiciously expended. 

Besides the national organization of brewers, 
an organization of the wine and spirit trade was 
effected in Chicago, in mass convention, October 
18, 1886. It was named the National Protective 
Association, with John M. Atherton, of Louisville, 
as its president. Its avowed object was to resist 
the rising tide of prohibition, which at this time 
became very perceptible. This organization did 
effective work for about a dozen years. Its place 
is now taken by the National Liquor Dealers' Pro- 
tective Bureau, a recent creature of the National 
Wholesale Liquor Dealers' Association. The Dis- 
tilling Company of America, better known as the 
Whisky Trust, paid all the administrative ex- 
penses of this bureau during its first year just 
closed. 



Its Meaning for the Liquor Trade. 183 

The money resources of the liquor organiza- 
tions are large. They usually have a large regular 
income from fixed annual assessments upon their 
members ; and when special funds are required for 
special needs, there are extra assessments. These 
funds are at the generous disposal of State and 
local organizations for any special pressing work. 

In large cases of liquor litigation these organ- 
izations furnish the financial backing. When in 
1887 several Kansas cases were appealed to the 
United States Supreme Court, involving the right 
of compensation for a business outlawed by pro- 
hibition, it was the United States Brewers' Asso- 
ciation that engaged the counsel, Senator Vest, of 
Missouri, and Joseph H. Choate, of New York, 
to argue these cases, paying them princely fees for 
their services. It was in these cases that the de- 
cision was handed down, denying the right of com- 
pensation to liquor dealers. 

The influence of these organizations is also felt 
through the country in efforts made to bring the 
violators of the liquor laws to justice. ISTo accused 
liquor-seller in any no-license town or prohibition 
State stands alone. If local money and influence 



184 A Century of Drink Reform. 

are not sufficient, he has the organized liquor power 
of the country back of him. This is one of the 
reasons it is so hard to get a conviction in a liquor 
case almost anywhere. But not only in violations 
such as these is the accused shielded by whatever 
power money can wield. In those graver crimes 
that not infrequently occur in connection with the 
enforcement of the liquor laws, this same power 
is felt. We will take a conspicuous instance, the 
murder of Rev. George 0. Haddock on the streets 
of Sioux City, Iowa, on August 3, 1886. Had- 
dock was a Methodist minister in Sioux City, and 
was at the head of a citizens' movement for the 
enforcement of the prohibitory law. He had in 
this way aroused the wrath of the law-breakers, 
and had been marked for death. Returning home, 
on the evening of this day, from a drive to a neigh- 
boring place, he left his team at the livery stable, 
and as he proceeded to go home a crowd collected 
to intercept him, in trying to pass whom he was 
shot and instantly killed. 

The country was aroused as by an electric 
shock. Suspicion fastened upon a certain brewer, 
and he was at length arrested and brought to trial. 



Its Meaning foe the Liquor Trade. 185 

At a meeting of the Saloon-keepers' Association 
the night before the murder, it was he who had 
suggested putting Haddock out of the way, and 
had called attention to the fact that there was 
money in the treasury of the association that could 
be used to reward the deed. 

The trial awakened widespread interest. 
Every one had confidence in the judge, but looked 
with suspicion on the jury. Strong evidence was 
presented by the prosecution. Yet at the conclu- 
sion, eleven of the jurors voted for acquittal. Why 
they voted thus they alone probably, and God, 
know. It is known generally, however, that the 
one man who held out for conviction had been ap- 
proached and offered a bribe to vote for acquittal. 
A second trial was held. Even stronger evidence 
was presented ; but to no avail. The jury, after a 
consultation that lasted about ten minutes, brought 
in a unanimous verdict of acquittal. The jurors 
then proceeded in a body to the photographer and 
sat for a picture, with the accused brewer in the 
center of the group; a proceeding, let it be here 
remarked, not of every-day occurrence in the an- 
nals of jurisprudence. The liquor interests of the 



186 A Century of Drink Keform. 

country, especially the United States Brewers' As- 
sociation, were back of this case with money and 
influence. 

]STot only is the organized liquor power using 
its influence against the enforcement of prohibi- 
tory laws, in that it shields the law-breakers, and 
murderers even, when brought to trial, it uses its 
power to prevent the enactment of prohibitory 
laws in the beginning. To show some of the 
ways in which money is used when a campaign is 
on for prohibition, we will take a single notable 
instance, the Pennsylvania campaign for constitu- 
tional prohibition, in 1889. The people of that 
State were to decide by ballot whether prohibition 
was to become a law and to be a part of the State 
Constitution. 

The liquor men had known that the fight was 
coming on, and had prepared for it. State and 
local forces were completely organized. The 
raising of money was first looked after. In 
Philadelphia the large hotels were assessed a thou- 
sand dollars each, and the small retailers from 
twenty-five to fifty dollars. Besides this, the sales 
of all beer were assessed at ten cents a barrel. Pur- 



Its AEeaxlxg foe the Liquor Trade. 187 

ther, each brewer was required to solicit money 
from every one with whom he had trade dealings, 

such as the barrel makers, those from whom they 
bought horses, grain, machinery, etc. In this way, 
$200,000 were raised in Philadelphia alone for 
the State committee. These same methods essen- 
tially were employed over the State. The brewers 
of Allegheny County, it was reported, had sub- 
scribed $35,000; and the Retail Liquor Dealers' 
Association of the same county, $25,000 more. The 
trade from all parts of the country responded. The 
brewers of Xew York contributed $100,000, and 
large sums were contributed by the United States 
Brewers' Association, and the National Protective 
Association. The total campaign fund was prob- 
ably not short of a million dollars. The Philadel- 
phia Press, in fact, estimated that this was the 
amount contributed in the State alone. 

How this vast sum was expended may be seen 
from the following facts. Nearly all the news- 
papers of the State were found to oppose the pro- 
hibitory amendment. Every editor had been vis- 
ited in person by the liquor interests at the open- 
ing of the campaign, and arrangements had been 



188 A Century of Drink Reform. 

made for his support. Weekly papers were paid 
from fifty to five hundred dollars, and the city 
dailies from one thousand to four thousand dollars 
each. Those papers that would not enter such a 
contract were paid from thirty to sixty cents a line 
for all matter published on the liquor side. The 
material was furnished them, for the most part, by 
the liquor literary bureau, written up by men paid 
for this special work, and to be printed as editorial 
or as news matter, as might be directed. Thou- 
sands of copies of these papers were then bought 
and sent out, especially to farmers, to whom such 
arguments as the liquor revenue, and how prohibi- 
tion would hurt the farmers, appealed with pecul- 
iar force. 

That the almost universal attitude of the press 
was not a matter of conviction, is made evident by 
a few facts. Upon the State chairman's statement, 
who managed the campaign on the temperance 
side, a former attorney-general of the State, at 
least one daily paper in Philadelphia stood ready, 
for a consideration of ten thousand dollars, to 
espouse the cause of prohibition. Papers through- 
out the State not only printed general matter fur- 



Its Meaning for the Liquor Trade. 189 

nished by the liquor management, but they printed 
bogus articles, made up in Philadelphia, under 
the guise of honest dispatches from Des Moines, 
Topeka, Atchison, and other places in prohibition 
States, — giving what pretended to be facts and 
figures to show the failure of prohibitory laws, and 
the havoc wrought by them. These dispatches so 
called, were printed with the full knowledge that 
they were bogus. They appeared in the news col- 
umn in the ordinary way, with nothing to indicate 
that it was advertising matter. When the man- 
agers of the campaign for the other side sent to 
the prohibition States and obtained from authori- 
tative sources a complete refutation of these state- 
ments, this matter was refused publication in the 
leading papers except upon the payment of so much 
a line, and upon the condition that the correction 
should in each case appear with a mark to distin- 
guish ifc as advertising matter.* 

Another heavy drain upon the purse of the 
liquor management was the politician. There is 
always a purchasable vote in every campaign, 
varying largely with the amount of money avail- 

*See article, Const. Prohibition, Pennsylvania, in Cyclopedia 
of Temperance and Prohibition. Funk & Wagnalls Co. 



190 A Century of Drink Reform. 

able for such purpose. It seems that Mr. Quay 
"bled" the liquor organization for three years, and 
then came near causing its defeat at the polls. The 
rumor became current that this money was being 
contributed to defeat Grover Cleveland for the 
Presidency. A movement was then set on foot to 
have the Democratic vote cast solidly for the 
amendment, to punish the brewers of the State. 
This was prevented by timely discovery, and by the 
liberal use of money in "fixing the boys/' by such 
soft answer turning away their wrath. In Phila- 
delphia the poll-list was bought of the county com- 
missioners by the liquor interests, for their exclu- 
sive use, with the understanding that it was not to 
be returned until after the election. 

Then some money went out for speakers, but 
not a great deal. It is the general practice of the 
liquor interests in any contest not to make large 
use of this means of campaigning. Probably 
good speakers are hard to get. Those whose serv- 
ices can be secured are of course well paid. In 
the Pennsylvania campaign Kate Field was said 
to have received $250 a day, and expenses, for her 
efforts to convince her hearers that prohibition is 
bad for a State. 



Its Meaning eor the Liquor Trade. 191 

With all this money at its disposal, the com- 
mittee on the liquor side was $50,000 in debt at 
the close of the campaign, chiefly in accounts with 
newspapers. On the other hand, the State com- 
mittee which managed the prohibition side of the 
campaign, though it had the influential support of 
such men as John Wanamaker, Governor Beaver, 
T. V. Powderly, ex-Chief Justice Agnew, and 
many other foremost men, there was but a com- 
paratively poor equipment of funds from the be- 
ginning. The proposed prohibitory amendment 
was defeated by a vote of 484,644 to 296,617, and 
the average American citizen will diagnose this 
as a symptom that public sentiment is not yet 
ready for prohibition. 

In conclusion: to claim that all this activity 
by the liquor interests is due entirely and chiefly 
to the Internal Revenue tax would probably be 
trying to prove too much. That the liquor inter- 
ests WT>uld have opposed the propagandism of tem- 
perance and prohibition which has swept over our 
land since the Civil War, even had no Internal 
Revenue tax ever been laid, is more than probable. 
Such a thing was to be expected, of course, as a 



192 A Century of Drink Reform. 

plain matter of self-preservation. What we wish 
to emphasize is this : that it was the Internal Rev- 
enue tax which first directly aroused the liquor in- 
terests and put them in fighting fettle; that it is 
this tax which took the liquor business out of the 
hands of the many, and concentrated it in the 
hands of the few, thereby giving to it organiza- 
tion and wealth and power. In the hands of the 
many, with small profits, it could never have be- 
come the formidable power it now is. It could 
not have reached the compactness of organization, 
the unity and celerity of action, or amassed the 
immense corruption funds that it now has. No 
industry that is not in a measure a monopoly, and 
wealthy, and knows itself thoroughly, can have 
much influence in shaping or defeating legislation. 
While it is, then, the vigorous temperance agi- 
tation everywhere that calls forth the constant 
resistance of the liquor power, it is the Internal 
Revenue policy of the United States that has, 
during these forty years put the liquor power in 
fine shape for the battle. 



(III.) 

CHAPTEK VI. 

Its Meaning for the Free Citizen. 

There is a third complication, finally, which 
the federal policy of taxation has introduced into 
the drink question. This applies also to State and 
local taxation under the license system. The com- 
plication is this: the payment of a heavy money 
sum into the public treasury by the liquor business 
has so blinded the eyes, seared the conscience, and 
sealed up the fountain of pity in the human breast, 
in the face of the daily manifest train of want and 
woe that proceeds from this traffic everywhere, 
that the whole drink issue has never yet been 
squarely met and fought out on its merits, whether 
it is good or whether evil. 

That the drink industry itself, under the disci- 
pline of taxation, should from its first strenuous 
efforts for self-preservation have become strong 
and lusty, and wanton even, is scarcely to be con- 
sidered strange. That the attitude of the Federal 
13 193 



194 A Century of Drink Reform. 

Government toward this industry, this genial, rich 
patron, from whom it receives more than a fourth 
of its entire support each year, — that its attitude 
toward this industry should be one of devotion, 
this too is not unnatural or strange. But that the 
free-born American citizen, to whom it is given to 
see truth face to face ; whose strength is not stayed ; 
whose strong arm, beneath high heaven, is free 
to support or strike down; that his hands, conse- 
crated under God to relieve the oppressed, to raise 
up the faint and the fallen, to lift up in this land 
of the free an ensign unto which the nations of the 
earth shall come for their healing, — that these 
hands, too, should have become unsteady and un- 
certain, itching for gold; this is unspeakably de- 
plorable. 

On the assumption that the liquor business is 
in a true sense a legitimate business, like any other, 
the whole license and special tax policy, from the 
heavily disproportionate burden it places upon 
this pursuit, is palpably and inexcusably unjust. 
That the business can stand this burden will not 
serve to justify it ; it only raises suspicion. That 
the liquor business cheerfully pays this heavy tax, 



Its Meaning for the Free Citizen. 195 

and even advocates the policy, is yet more signifi- 
cant ; it is itself a condemnation. On the assump- 
tion, then, on the other hand, that the liquor busi- 
ness is not like other pursuits, but from its very 
nature is fraught with evil, which a rigid legal 
restriction must and can effectually prevent, — on 
this assumption the entire policy of license and 
taxation, from the fact that after the fairest trial 
under such severest restriction the consumption of 
strong drink in the aggregate and per capita has 
grown, and the evils flowing therefrom have known 
no perceptible abatement, — this has proven the 
license and restriction policy a stupendous failure, 
and again without justification. A little clear 
thinking should have made this plain in the begin- 
ning. The way to restrict is to restrict, not per- 
mit — f or money. 

It remains, then, that because the liquor trade 
is willing and able to pay a large amount of money 
into the public treasury, the American citizen al- 
lows that it may work evil; refusing to suppress 
the evil because with it would cut off a source of 
revenue to the State. In other words, the Amer- 
ican citizen sanctions and sustains the public drink 



l'c": ; A ZSTXTKY OF DkETK ReFOBM, 

TTiir. r:: mL:m i: if go:!. ":m: :mo.:mist Li "Links it 
pays him welL It is Buskin who observes that 
:Lr ::i:Lzi:.:::i res'lii; :r_ :L~ ~:rli is n:: :L.i: 
nfi 1; n:: :33t~t in :L3r L:rd. ::..: :" .:: :3n, s-:V. 
Him! 

The farmer sells the product of his land; the 
laborer, that of his hands; the professional man 
:Lr pr:-r.:;:, :r semis- ::' Lis c:\vLl. — ::r nisnev. 
This money, as a medium of exchange and a con- 
--smssm: nessMTr :: n:M-srll ~3mm — 111 in :Mm 
b"" :- sm! :z !:nl-ss. :r > :•:•:!. :r 3. jnrrisrs. or 
the services of a railway company for a journey. 
TLrS-r :mm :•■: — - : li:iss. :c: :.:r. :Lrr-s-f:rr. ^rir-er 
objects of barter or sale. The value of the one 
:.in It sstLimmtI. —11 sorir is^rss :: :^Tr;zizii- 
~1::. in v^i; :: :1s- ::Lrr. 3m: in ~ L.s: :-srn= 
sL31 :Lr tiImt :£ 131 le snss-rl \ IT;— mim:L — ;3 
s, mimm ri — in tz:L:.m^t :lr i: \ "A3 "3:m Ls L::L." 
yet that will not buy it> nor will it represent the 
value of it. We hare here come upon terms that 
axe incommensur a ble. Life — the soul, unlike 
~:m: '/: ~: ; 1 v: r:li. Lis m: mm!:s :£ rir^sMrr. 
of size or weight, or value. It can not possibly 
be exchanged, therefore^ for any of these. Do 



Its Meaning eok the Free Citizen. 197 

we allow a man who has deliberately taken a 
human life to expiate his crime by the payment of 
so much gold ? No ; he has to pay with his own 
life. Only in terms of another life can the value 
of a life be estimated. Indeed, so sacred is life 
that even this right of the State to take the 
wretched life of a murderer, is coming to be more 
and more questioned as civilization advances. 

But there are yet higher values than life, — 
virtue, honor, love. To sacrifice life rather than 
virtue and honor; to perish in a labor of love — 
to such deeds all mankind pays tribute. If mur- 
der, then, is so grave a crime, when death is con- 
fessedly not the worst of evils, what shall we say 
of a sanctioned public practice whereby reason 
ends in insanity, and virtue in shame ? How 
many dollars will represent the difference between 
that sad remnant of womanhood, with face once 
fair, now festered and foul, who, after having 
served the lusts of the flesh, has now been cast 
away to be trodden under foot of men, — and that 
other woman, with face yet fair and heart yet 
pure ; a devoted wife, a tender and beloved mother 
of children, by grace queen of the home; com- 



198 A Century of Dbink Eefoem. 

manding by her presence everywhere the involun- 
tary respect and homage of men; how many dol- 
lars ought a man fairly to receive before he should 
hand over his sister or daughter to an institution 
that will transform her from the latter into the 
former state? The close relation between drink 
and impurity no man may dare deny. Drink 
opens the way into the citadel of virtue which 
would otherwise have been impregnable. Or how 
much money, again, will represent the difference 
between that man whose very presence is feared 
by his own children, and dreaded by his worse than 
widowed wife ; whose daily earnings, left at night 
in the saloon till, serve to feed other mouths and 
clothe other bodies than those of his own family ; 
who on returning home after midnight hours will 
curse and destroy articles of furniture that come 
in his way, and proceeding to his wife's bed, begets 
imbecility, and after ridding himself of discom- 
fort by copious vomiting, sinks into a heavy sleep ; 
this man and that other husband and father, whose 
home-coming is eagerly looked for by his little 
ones ; who devoutly asks the blessing of God upon 
the frugal evening meal ; who by industry and self- 



Its Meaning fob the Free Citizen. 199 

denial is raising up a large family to usefulness 
and honor; to whom no appeal of religion or hu- 
manity comes in vain ; in whose daily walk every 
young man finds an incentive to better living, and 
every woman a prof ounder respect — in what terms 
of money, by coolest calculation, shall we estimate 
the difference between these two men — their value 
before God, or to society ? That widowed mother 
who spent many an anxious, weary midnight hour 
over the cradle of her only child ; who nursed him 
to health and strength by her love and her prayers ; 
who took from her own want that he might lack 
nothing; in whose requiting confidence and affec- 
tion, his bright eye and fine promise, the mother 
found a joy and a cheer that made her very sacri- 
fice sweet; how high a license fee ought a com- 
munity to require of a liquor-seller that he may 
take this boy, give him liquor, and throw him into 
the gutter, or send him home to his mother — 
drunk? 

How the tax-advocating citizen will work out 
such a question honestly in his own soul, if he 
does work it out, he alone probably knows. Prob- 
ably he changes the form of the question, by that 



200 A Oebttuby of Deixk Refoe^i. 

same instinct whereby one involuntarily shifts his 
body from a position of discomfort to one of ease. 
Were he to give an absolutely candid and logical 
answer to this question he would say this.: the 
money value of the ruin wrought the country over 
by the use of liquor for any given period, divided 
by the amount of liquor consumed during that 
period, fixes the appraisement of damage done at 
$1.10 for each gallon of whisky drunk, and one 
dollar for each barrel of beer consumed. This the 
distiller and brewer have to pay before the liquor 
goes out, a kind of penalty for making it. This 
is the Federal excise tax. Furthermore, the ex- 
tent to which the retail liquor-seller contributes 
to the damage, by handling the liquor, is estimated 
at an average of twenty : five dollars each year. 
This is the Federal special liquor tax. According 
to the same Government schedule, the wholesale 
liquor dealer's part in the harvest of desolation is 
estimated at one hundred dollars a year; the rec- 
tifier's part, likewise at one hundred dollars. If 
he does a large business, however, and '''rectifies" 
more than five hundred barrels a year, he is be- 
lieved to do two hundred dollars worth of damage 
each year, etc. 



Its Meaning for the Fkee Citizen. 201 

This is the American citizen's estimate when 
he is acting in his federal capacity. As a citizen 
of the State he has a slightly different basis of 
computation. Here he does not concern himself 
with the brewer, the distiller, the rectifier, the 
maker of stills ; he fixes the responsibility upon the 
retailer, the man who sets the liquor before the 
people to drink, the immediate agent of evil. Ap- 
praising the total human wreckage wrought by 
the fire, flood, and tempest of strong drink for one 
year, the citizen divides this by the total number 
of drink-sellers, and reaches an annual average 
damage for each, say of five hundred dollars. This 
is then fixed as the minimum annual rate, or li- 
cense fee. This is the rate in Illinois, for instance. 
In other States, like Wisconsin, with a large alien 
population and a less enlightened conscience, the 
injury wrought is appraised at a lower figure. In 
Massachusetts, on the other hand, with its Puritan 
standard of morals, sobriety and manhood are ap- 
praised much higher. It takes not less than about 
twelve hundred dollars to get permission to sell 
liquor for one year in that State. 

No ; the citizen does not really want it to seem 



209 ^ C KNTimv of Dboix Refokm. 

that he is setting a money value on virtue, though 
in ::-;.-_ ini be::r~ G\ : It I>r= i: :Lii - T i- .ii^r. 
He does not really look at it in that way, but he 
carries ont the transaction just the same. He 
knows that the liquor business is fraught with evil, 
not potentially or casually, but actually and inev- 
itably. He knows that an open public saloon in a 
community will spread evil and destroy morals, 
u inevitably as a public well which has be- 
come polluted by sewage will spread typhoid fever, 
and cause death in that community. Xot every- 
body gets water at that welL 35ot every one that 
uses the water will get typhoid fever; but a num- 
ber will Some will die. And the Board of Health 
will condemn that well! 

Not t one in town goes to that saloon to 
drink; but it is there for that purpose, and many 
do go. Not every ne that goes and drinks will 
be perceptibly affected thereby, but a number will, 
in their persons and finances — and their families. 
Some will be utterly ruined. And the citizen says, 
Make him pay five hundred dollars every year! 

We must have revenue, the citizen says; and 
his eyea see and ears hear nothing but the gold as 



Its Meaning for the Free Citizen. 203 

it drops clink, clink, into the strong box of village 
or city. The liquor • interests take advantage of 
this peculiar human weakness, and when a cam- 
paign is on for no-license or prohibition, word is 
passed down the line of the workers on the liquor 
side, as was done in the Pennsylvania campaign 
already mentioned, namely, "Do n't defend the 
saloon. Talk revenue, and how prohibition will 
hurt business." Just before a recent election there 
appeared on the first page of one of the leading 
dailies, in large letters, in a city which for cul- 
ture, intellect, and morals prides itself as being 
the foremost city of America, words to this effect 

(an advertisement, of course, paid for) : " 

dollars were paid into the city treasury of ...... 

last year by the liquor trade. Remember this 
when you vote to-morrow." The citizens remem- 
bered. With such large figures in mind it would 
be hard, indeed, to think of anything else. Only 
one more thing let the citizen remember, over 
against this, namely: except for this revenue he 
would not tolerate the drink nuisance in any com- 
munity, not for a twelvemonth. 

But, never mind. It 's done, and business is 



204: A Ce^tuey of Dei^k Kefoem. 

business. How mucli has this bargain netted us ? 
How much have we made, now — money? Ton 
tell 

"Well, in this town we get three thousand dol- 
lars a year. There are six saloons, which pay five 
hundred dollars apiece. This is paid promptly, 
the first of each quarter, in advance. Out of this 
we maintain our electric lighting, keep our streets 
and sidewalks in good condition. This money is 
easily raised, and lessens our taxes by just so much. 
Not only that, but the saloons bring trade to town. 
The town would be dead otherwise. They are the 
making of the town." 

Indeed. Then perhaps there is another side 
to this question, besides a right and a wrong side. 
Perhaps the evils connected with drink-selling are 
only necessarily incidental to any real material 
prosperity. Perhaps, after all, one son's degrada- 
tion, one mother's woe, must not outweigh the 
material necessities and well-being of society at 
large. It may be true, we have not seen all sides. 

"Yes; and besides these large sums that the 
saloons pay into the treasury of our towns, the 
liquor industry of the country pays a large part of 



Its Mea^ijStg for the Tkee Citizex. 205 

the expenses of our Government, in the form of 
revenue and special taxes. The people are already 
complaining of heavy taxes; yet except for this 
liquor revenue they would be taxed still heavier.'' 

Indeed! Indeed! Indeed! So much money! 
There is another side, surely. And — but where 
do they get all this money ? 

Listen! Let us look at a thing here with 
steady, scrutinizing, unflinching gaze. Where 
does all this money come from? Do the distiller, 
the brewer, the drink-seller make it ? That is to 
say, does the drink business, which does not dig 
this money out of the earth, but like other lines 
of trade receives it in exchange, — does this busi- 
ness, upon any principle of sound economy, earn 
this money by rendering adequate service for value 
received ? If so, it then becomes an actual pro- 
ducer of wealth, and these millions constitute its 
assets — whatever its liabilities — and must be set 
down to its credit in its ledger account with so- 
ciety. Has this money been earned ? That 's the 
question. 

The farmer who tills the earth and makes it 
yield her increase, becomes an agent of produc- 



206 A Century oe Drink Reform. 

tion. The man who invents his implements for 
him; the man who constructs them; the man who 
furnishes the materials for them, who digs the 
iron 'out of the earth; whose sagacity and enter- 
prise locates and opens the mine — these are all 
producers of wealth, creators of value. So is the 
man who builds your house, makes your clothes, 
rears the sheep, raises the cotton and flax; who 
builds a bridge, constructs a railroad, blasts a rock, 
levels a road; the miller who grinds the wheat, 
the baker who makes it into bread, the merchant 
who sells clothing and groceries, the banker who 
facilitates exchange, the teacher who imparts and 
fosters learning, the physician who relieves suffer- 
ing and aids in restoring to health, the lawyer who 
gives counsel and protects alike the rights of the 
guilty and the innocent, the minister who com- 
forts the sorrowing, brings hope to the despairing, 
and a nobler incentive to every soul — the prophet 
of a better life; all these, yes, and the man who 
digs a drain, or sweeps the pavement, or cleans 
your chimney, or shines your shoes, or curries your 
horse — all these add to the cleanliness, the com- 
fort, the health and happiness of the world ; con- 



Its Meaning for the Free Citizen. 207 

tributing to its material, intellectual, aesthetic, and 
moral wealth. Each of these has his place, and 
take him out of it, society would suffer, so far 
forth, an absolute loss. i 

How about the man who makes a living by sell- 
ing liquor ? Is he, too, a producer of wealth ? 
Would the world be poorer if he were taken out of 
it ? Does he, too, minister to human comfort and 
plenty and happiness, or encourage industry and 
economy, or promote skill, or foster education and 
religion, or offer incentives to better living? If 
so, to what extent ? Do the three hundred million 
dollars which the liquor trade paid last year, in 
the form of special revenue taxes, licenses, and 
fees of all kinds, national, State, and local, — 
which represents but a portion of its profits, which, 
in turn, represent but a small portion of its in- 
come; are these three hundred million dollars to 
be taken as but a fractional indication, therefore, 
of the sum total of services which the liquor trade 
contributed to the well-being of this country dur- 
ing one year ? 

!NTo; these millions simply represent a portion 
of the money that the saloon-keeper received from 



208 A Ceniuky of Drhstk Beform. 

the people who bought his ware. In return for this 
money he set before them beer, wine, whisky — al- 
coholic and intoxicating liquors, which ministered 
to no human necessity or comfort or well-being, 
but to an acquired and perverted appetite only. 
No home was thereby made happier, no heart 
purer, no life stronger. The saloon-keeper, in 
spite of the fact that he works early and late, and 
sometimes has to contend with beasts, has not 
earned one cent of his money. When people spend 
their money for that which is not bread, and their 
labor for that which satisfies not, we do not call 
this a purchase or an acquisition, but a waste at 
best. The liquor saloon in society at large is at 
best, from an economic point of view, a vast sewer 
into which the flood of human appetite carries each 
year millions upon millions of the people's hard 
earned money. The amount which society receives 
in taxes and license fees is simply that small por- 
tion which has been saved to it out of this waste 
sewage, the largest amount that the avaricious citi- 
zen, with soiled hands, has been able to fish out of 
this underground stream. 

We know now where this liquor revenue comes 



Its Meaning fob the Feee Citizen. 209 

from, this magical money which the citizen is bid- 
den not to forget on election day. We know now 
who contributes all this money that makes towns 
and cities and governments prosperous, and we 
know pretty well how much the citizen gets in re- 
turn for his outlay. Three hundred million dol- 
lars is approximately what the citizen, by every 
device of taxation and fines, has been able to 
save out of this drain. 

We want to look a little more closely now, to 
see how much really goes in there, that we any 
estimate about what is lost — absolutely and for- 
ever. Here a man's senses and understanding will 
fail him. When the United States official reports 
give out the information that* in the course of a 
twelvemonth more than one hundred million proof 
gallons (i. e., fifty per cent alcohol) of spirits were 
withdrawn for consumption, and of malt liquors 
over forty million barrels ; and that, besides t v ds, 
from eight to ten million gallons of wines and 
liquors were imported from other countries; be- 
sides the total production of native wines, which 
are not taxed, and the products of illicit distilling, 
of which a thousand and more stills are seized 
14 



210 A Cejntury of Drink Refoem. 

each year by the Government officials ; these figures 
become simply incomprehensible. They only con- 
fuse the mind by their very size, and leave but an 
indefinite impression of vastness. And when we 
read that the people of our land pay for this liquor, 
as their yearly drink bill, not less than one billion 
dollars, and very probably nearer a billion and a 
half, every object of man's knowledge and com- 
prehension dwindles instantly into nothingness; 
the perspective is lost, and man murmurs only a 
weary, half-indifferent, half -incredulous "large." 
William Hargreaves, M. D., of Philadelphia, 
author of "Worse than Wasted/' estimated the 
drink bill of the United States for 1900 at $1,465,- 
000,000. He explains his method of computation ; 
says he has made these estimates for twenty years, 
and that they have never been questioned ; that he 
has laid them before gaugers of the revenue depart- 
ment, before ex-saloon-keepers, and other persons 
capable of judging, and they agree that his esti- 
mates are as nearly correct as it is possible to make 
them. He insists that his figures are conservative, 
below rather than above the actual cost. We will 
take only $1,200,000,000 here, for purposes of 
comparison. This is probably on the safe side. 



Its Meaning eor the Free Citizen. 211 

We will now place an object or two in the fore- 
ground, that we may better judge of distance and 
size. The public school system of our land, that 
best exponent of democracy and greatest factor in 
our national assimilation, — for every dollar that 
the American citizen pays in taxes for public edu- 
cation ($200,000,000), he pays not less than six 
for liquor. Again, the United States of America, 
a country vast in extent, first in resources, great in 
achievement, liberal in expenditure, a world power 
— the total expenditures of this great nation for 
one year ($593,000,000 for the year ending June 
30, 1902), covering the legislative, executive, and 
judicial branches; including the army, the navy, 
Indians, pensions, post-office, interest on public 
debt, and every other last item and source of ex- 
pense; these liberal expenditures of a liberal gov- 
ernment, which the citizens do not always con- 
tribute without grumbling, amount to just about 
one-half of what the same people pay out, in a like 
period, for strong drink. Subtracting, now, the 
$300,000,000 which the liquor trade pays back to 
the people, and we have an absolute waste, or loss, 
of $900,000,000 and upwards; one billion dollars, 
approximately. 



212 A Century of Drink Reform. 

Let it not be forgotten that this vast sum rep- 
resents, at its best, an annual waste and loss. That 
the money is not sunk into the ocean, but is all 
kept in the country, does not make it one whit 
less a waste and loss. The expenditure has brought 
no returns. It is as if this country should engage 
half a million skilled workmen, set them at mak- 
ing pianos and fine furniture, having them fur- 
nish their own materials, and pay them an average 
of two thousand dollars a year for every man; 
then give orders that each night the entire finished 
product of that day's work shall be burned up. 
The money paid for this work all stays in the 
country, but it brings no return. It represents 
destroyed wealth. 

We hear much in our country about the large 
standing armies of Europe. We are taught to look 
upon this institution as a burden and a drain upon 
the productive, honest industries of a people. Why 
a drain and a burden? The money paid out for 
the maintenance of standing armies all stays in 
the country. It makes business for the gold braid 
and brass button industries, the gun and powder 
factories. It creates model cities like Essen 2 and 



Its Meaning for the Free Citizen. 213 

makes Krupp millionaires; and any town where 
soldiers are quartered will witness lively times. 
How a drain, then, and a burden ? For this rea- 
son: the taxpayer gets nothing in return for his 
money, except perhaps the spectacle of imposing 
field maneuvers and splendid sham battles an- 
nually. The armies eat up wealth and create none. 
They do n't make their own living, but are sup- 
ported by the country. They are a burden, there- 
fore, to every honest toiler. For this reason the 
statement, that in Europe every workman carries 
a soldier upon his back, comes not far from being 
the truth. 

Yet the United States could better afford to 
support a standing army of a million men, gath- 
ering up all the unemployed and relieving every 
overcrowded business and profession, and pay each 
man an average of a thousand dollars a year, hav- 
ing him out of this sum furnish his own board, 
clothes, and ammunition, — could* better afford to 
support this body of men, and keep them shooting 
at targets, than it can afford to pay a similar sum 
to a nearly similar number who now spend their 
time and labor at making and selling liquor. Each 



214 A Century of Drink Reform. 

eats up the same amount of wealth of others' toil ; 
neither gives anything in return; with this much 
in favor of the army — it would at least leave its 
supporters sober, probably very sober. This coun- 
try could better afford to support in absolute idle- 
ness, as lords and gentlemen, the 200,000 men who 
run retail liquor establishments in our land, pay- 
ing them $5,000 a year, each, the salary of a 
United States Senator, than it can afford to pay 
the same sum to these same men, as it now does, 
for selling strong drink. Out of the money now 
spent for liquor, our Government could buy out, 
every six months, the entire wine, spirit, and malt 
liquor industry of the country, using land and 
buildings for the benefit of the people, and have a 
number of millions left besides. 

We have in each instance said that our nation 
could tetter afford to do these things. The imme- 
diate money transaction would be the same. But 
while the citizen who supports a lord or soldier in 
idleness is out of so much money, he has himself 
left yet. He can still work and produce more 
wealth. But when the citizen pays out his money 
for liquor, while his money is gone — an absolute 
loss to him — that is not all; (and we are not speak- 



Its Meaning for the Free Citizen. 215 

ing of health or manhood or morals now, but just 
of money and material wealth.) The man gets 
drunk, say, and for the time being at least is not 
able to work. The value of so much of labor is 
lost. Or because of drunkenness he loses his place 
and is altogether without work. The wealth that 
his labor might have produced is totally lost, an 
absolute loss to himself and to society. He eats 
up and does nothing. Or because of drinking he 
becomes sick and thus loses his labor; or becomes 
a pauper and a public charge. Or he becomes con- 
tentious as the very common result of drinking, 
and destroys property or commits assault, perhaps 
a crime, even murder. Then society employs offi- 
cers to catch him; pays a lawyer, judge, jurors, 
and witnesses to try him ; builds a penitentiary to 
receive him; pays out money to feed him, a war- 
den, a chaplain, and attendants to look after him. 
Or the man ; as the result of drink, becomes a 
maniac, and society builds an asylum for him to 
live in, and pays out money to feed and keep him. 
Or he begets an imbecile child, or by neglect and 
example rears one to crime, or his family to pau- 
perism ; and society cares for them all. 



216 A Century of Drink Reform. 

Add up, if you can, the entire criminal budget 
of the country — the whole police machinery, court 
expenses, prisons, everything, for one year — and 
take one-half of this as representing probably at 
the very least the cost of liquor's aftermath in 
crime and disorder, either immediately or re- 
motely; find the total amount expended each year 
in charity, privately and by the State, and the 
cost of our almshouses, and of the asylums, public 
and private, for the insane, — and take of these 
figures from one-fourth to one-third, as represent- 
ing the amount traceable, immediately or remotely 
to the drinking habits of the nation; take these 
figures, together with the money value of labor lost 
and labor misdirected as the result of liquor, and 
add to them the one billion dollars spent annually, 
above all license fees received in return, for liquor, 
and you will arrive with some degree of approxi- 
mation at the yearly cash account of the drink 
trade with society. 

If it is true that in a country with a large 
standing army every honest workman carries a 
soldier upon his back, it is no less true that in a 
country with the public saloon system every hon- 



Its Meaning tor the Free Citizen. 217 

estly toiling citizen carries upon his back either 
a brewer, distiller, or barkeeper, a pauper, an 
idiot, a maniac, a murderer, a policeman, or a 
criminal lawyer : and some of these are heavy. 

Verily, the clink of the license money as it 
drops into the public cash-box has charmed the 
citizen with a fascination akin to that with which 
the magician's coin charms the rustic at the fair. 
So sure was the latter that he would have staked 
his very soul upon the guess, when behold! the 
coin was under the other hat. 

An old farmer of the writer's acquaintance, 
now gone to his reward, once took a load of hogs 
to market. As the wagon stood upon the buyer's 
scales, and the attention of the buyer was for a 
moment diverted, the old farmer reached over and 
gave the balance weight a smart turn. The buyer, 
pretending not to have noticed it, proceeded to 
weigh the hogs, and when the farmer drove off 
thought he would adjust his scales, to see out of 
how much he had been cheated. He found that 
the farmer had turned the weight the wrong way! 
He had been willing and anxious to barter his 
conscience for a few pounds of pork, but — bad 



iilS A CzxruBT of Deesk Refobm. 

bargain that it was — he was not bright enough ; he 
was cheated even at that. This man carried with 
him into his grave this confident, twofold delu- 
sion: first, that no one ever knew of his tampering 
with the scales; and secondly, that he made money 
by the transaction. 



C. EDUCATION. 

219 



(I.) 

CHAPTEE VII. 
Moral Movements Since the Wab. 

We paused in our narrative at the year 1862, 
the year in which the Internal Revenue Act was 
passed, to consider the principle and policy of 
liquor taxation in its effect, first, upon the Gov- 
ernment; secondly, upon the liquor trade; and 
thirdly, upon the free citizen. This necessarily 
led us on, to take into account those main facts 
of subsequent and recent history which pertained 
to these particular phases of our subject. We will 
now go back and see what form and direction the 
temperance sentiment of the country took in the 
meantime. 

The Civil War was a great destroyer. It 
blighted in fairest blossom time the promised 
fruits of the maturing temperance reformation. 
A dozen States had expressed themselves for ab- 
solute prohibition of the liquor traffic. Others 
had adopted this policy in partial form, and every- 
221 



222 A Century of Drink Reform. 

where sentiment was strong and growing. Tem- 
perance societies of many kinds and names had 
been active and increasing in numbers and 
strength. The progress of the reform seemed ir- 
resistible, and its culmination inevitable. 

When the smoke of battle cleared away the 
aspect was changed. Temperance work had been 
paralyzed, and temperance societies impoverished 
of membership. Now after the long night watches, 
when the tension of fearful anxiety was relieved by 
the matin bells of peace, came the repose of weari- 
ness. All life and interest that remained was di- 
verted to other channels — reconstruction and citi- 
zenship, problems arising out of emancipation and 
rebellion. Besides, during the night the enemy 
had arisen. He had entered a compact, and had 
gone out to destroy. A plan to do away with all 
existing prohibitory laws had been set on foot by 
him. For the first time, it seemed, he at once 
fully recognized his danger and his opportunity. 
In addition to all this, the home-coming soldier, 
with the demoralizing influence of camp life upon 
him, helped no little to undo what had been ac- 
complished before the war for sobriety. 



Moral Movements Since the War. 223 

1. Temperance interest had, however, not 
been wholly inactive even during the war, and was 
by no means dead. Following immediately upon 
the close of the war, in the summer of 1865, a 
fifth National Temperance Convention was held 
at Saratoga, fourteen years after a last similar 
gathering had convened. (The first National 
Temperance Convention, it will be remembered, 
met in Philadelphia, in May, 1833.) This con- 
vention was conspicuous by the absence of the 
heroes of earlier temperance battles. Justin Ed- 
wards, mightiest organizer and leader in the early 
reform, had passed to his reward. So had Gov- 
ernor Briggs, fine type of man and public servant ; 
and Hon. Theodore Frelinghuysen, senator, states- 
man, college president, friend of every cause of 
religion and humanity. Lyman Beecher, too, at 
the ripe age of eighty-seven, had laid his armor 
by; so also had President Hitchcock, of Amherst, 
than whom few had done more in the cause ; and 
Rear Admiral Alexander H. Eoote, one of the 
first to introduce temperance into the navy; and 
Robert Baird, who personally planted the seeds of 
temperance over northern Europe in the early day. 



224 A Century of Drink Reform. 

Lastly, and recently, Lincoln had been taken, 
whose example and influence had been a pillar 
of strength to the cause. The country had not yet 
recovered from the shock of his death. Walworth, 
Pierpont, Delavan, and Marsh were still present, 
but only themselves soon to follow. 

At this convention 325 delegates were present 
from twenty-five States, representing the Churches 
and the various temperance organizations. Gov- 
ernor Buckingham, of Connecticut, presided. 
During a two-days' conference papers were read 
on important topics by Rev. Dr. Chickering, of 
Boston ; Rev. W. W. Newell, of New York ; James 
Black, of Pennsylvania ;■■ and by Dr. Charles Jew- 
ett. It was resolved to form both a national tem- 
perance society, and a national publication-house ; 
the former to concentrate all the temperance forces 
of the land by bringing together the different tem- 
perance orders and associations, the latter to pre- 
pare and circulate sound temperance literature. 
James Black was the moving spirit in the latter 
organization. Separate committees were ap- 
pointed ; but the two branches of work were united, 
and by fall The National Temperance Society and 



Moral Movements Since the War. 225 

Publication-house was formed. The American 
Temperance Union, organized in Saratoga, at the 
second national temperance convention, in 1836, 
was now merged in the new organization, and 
ceased to be. The basis of the new society was, 
total abstinence for the individual, and total pro- 
hibition for the State. Hon. William E. Dodge, 
merchant prince, member of Congress, Indian com- 
missioner, Christian philanthropist, became the 
first president of the society, and J. N. Stearns, a 
man of experience and clear vision, became its 
efficient corresponding secretary and publishing 
agent. 

This new society was destined to fill a large 
place in the work of temperance reform. With- 
out affiliation of party or sect, but embracing all, 
it was to become a sort of large temperance uni- 
versity, devoting itself specifically to publishing 
and circulating effective temperance literature in 
schools, hospitals, jails, etc., and among the people 
generally, including the freedmen of the South. 
The society has also given effectual aid in prohibi- 
tory campaigns, sending out speakers and mission- 
aries in the reform, and drafting and urging legis- 
15 



226 A Century of Drink Reform. 

lative measures. To this society more than to any 
other one agency has been due the rehabilitation 
of temperance sentiment since the close of the 
Civil War. 

2. In 1869 a few zealous temperance workers 
in the city of Buffalo, who were members of the 
Order of Good Templars, the Sons of Temperance, 
and the Templars of Honor and Temperance, hav- 
ing tried to secure the enforcement of the Sunday 
law against liquor-selling, and failed, became con- 
vinced that the people were not willing to give this 
question their serious thought and support, and 
that public sentiment must be created in favor of 
law enforcement, backed by the moral and relig- 
ious elements of the community. To this end they 
launched a new order, the Royal Templars of Tem- 
perance. 

This was not intended to be a rival of other 
temperance orders, but with a distinct mission in 
educational rather than reformatory lines. Its 
object is thus stated: "To labor unceasingly for 
the promotion of the cause of temperance, morally, 
socially, religiously, and politically." ~Ho special 
efforts were made to spread the order until, in 



Mokae Movements Since the Wak. 227 

1877, it was reorganized on a beneficiary basis. 
Its prosperity since then has been mainly due to 
this change. 

3. On February 22, 1872, the Catholic Total 
Abstinence Union of America was formed in Bal- 
timore, by representatives of Catholic total absti- 
nence societies from about a dozen States. Some 
of these temperance societies had been in existence 
since the days of Father Mathew's visit to America. 
There had been no bond of union between them, 
however, until 1871, when the societies of Con- 
necticut formed a State Union. This suggested 
the idea of a general Union, and culminated in the 
meeting at Baltimore. 

After the adoption of a constitution an address 
was issued to the Catholics of America. Rev. 
James McDevitt, of Washington, was elected the 
first president of the Union, and B. J. O'Driscoll, 
of the same city, its secretary. The pledge of the 
Union reads as follows : "I promise, with Divine 
assistance and in honor of the sacred thirst and 
agony of our Savior, to abstain from all intoxicat- 
ing drinks ; to prevent as much as possible, by ad- 
vice and example, the sin of intemperance in 



228 A Century of Drink Keform. 

others; and to discountenance the drinking cus- 
toms of society/' Subordinate branches, State and 
diocesan Unions soon began to be formed. The 
aim of the Union has been to establish a total ab- 
stinence society in every parish throughout the 
land. Through this organization much has been 
given in relief to the poor and suffering, and halls 
have been built, reading-rooms and libraries es- 
tablished as counter attractions to the saloon. 
Through the labors, chiefly, of the Philadelphia 
Union, a magnificent fountain was erected in Fair- 
mount Park of that city, and on July 4, 1876, in 
the presence of an immense concourse of people, it 
was dedicated to American liberty. 

The Catholic Total Abstinence Union has re- 
ceived the approval of the Plenary Council of the 
Catholic Church in America, and the commenda- 
tion and blessing of the Holy Father, the late Pope 
Leo XIII. Many of the foremost men of the 
Church, both among the clergy and the laity, are 
giving their active support to the Union and to 
the cause of temperance. The practice of the bulk 
of the Church, however, with respect to temper- 
ance, leaves yet much to be desired. 



Moeal Movements Since the War. 229 

4. In 1881 the Church Temperance Society 
was formed in New York City. This is the tem- 
perance organization of the Protestant Episcopal 
Church. Its object, as stated in the constitution, 
is threefold : to promote temperance ; to rescue the 
intemperate; to remove the causes of intemper- 
ance. As agencies for accomplishing these results 
it employe (1) the Gospel; (2) coffee-houses, as 
counteractives of the saloon; (3) improved dwell- 
ings for the poor; (4) healthy literature. 

One peculiar feature of this society is that it 
Is the only temperance organization that does not 
now stand upon unconditional total abstinence. 
Its basis is defined in these words : "Recognizing 
temperance as the law of the Gospel, and total ab- 
stinence as a rule of conduct essential in certain 
cases and highly desirable in others, and fully and 
freely according to every man the right to decide, 
in the exercise of his Christian liberty, whether or 
not he will adopt said rule, this society lays down 
as a basis on which it rests and from which its 
work shall be conducted, union and co-operation on 
perfectly equal terms for the promotion of tem- 
perance between those who use temperately and 



230 A Cz:ttt2t or I>:=;::rx xwzrosir. 

those who abstain entirely from intoxicating 
drinks as beverages." 

Bestridden rather than prohibition is the aim 
of the society, with reference to the traffic in liquor 
— stopping the sale on Sundays, to minors, and to 
drunkards; with high license and local option. 
The control of the society is under an executive 
board and the bishops of the Church. Kobert 
Graham has been its efficient secretary from the 
beginning. The society aims ultimately to estab- 
lish a branch society in every diocese, and a paro- 
chial society in every parish. 

5. The Reform Clubs and Gospel Temper- 
zr.a. 

The first Bef orm Club was formed at Gardiner, 
Maine, on January 19, 1872. The chief agent in 
its formation was Mr. L K. Osgood, a man once 
successful as a merchant, but brought to ruin by 
drink. Coming home late one night, on approach- 
ing the honse he could see his wife through the 
window, as she sat in her wretched home waiting 
for him. He resolved then and there, that by the 
help of God he would never drink again. After 
several months he induced another to sign the 



Mot?.aTi Movements Sln"ce the War. 231 

pledge. They then called a meeting on the day 
mentioned above, inviting the public, and espe- 
cially drunkards, to come and hear what rum had 
done for them. Eight drinking companions signed 
the pledge that night, and the first Reform Club 
was started. The movement attracted attention 
and spread to other cities, and clubs multiplied 
through the State and in other States by the labors 
of Osgood and his converts. 

A larger work, of a similar kind, was that 
started by Dr. Henry A. Reynolds, of Bangor, 
Maine. Reynolds was a graduate of the Harvard 
Medical School, had served as surgeon in the Civil 
War, and was a practicing physician in Bangor, 
and — a drunkard. He had tried several times to 
break off, but in vain. A band of women were 
holding a prayer-meeting in that city; he went to 
the meeting and signed the pledge. At once he 
tried to help others like himself. He conceived 
the plan of a reform club made up of drinking 
men only. He gave notice of a meeting of drink- 
ing men, and the Bangor Reform Club was or- 
ganized on September 10, 1874. With true mis- 
sionary spirit others were brought in, and the mem- 



232 A Cesttuky of Drink Reform. 

bership grew rapidly. Excitement spread. Be- 
lieving he had a call of God to this work, Dr. Rey- 
nolds gave up his profession and devoted himself 
to the reform. In one year forty-five thousand 
men had been gathered into Reform Clubs in the 
State of Maine. Reynolds then went into Massa- 
chusetts, and extended his labors westward into 
Illinois, Michigan, and other States. The badge 
of the movement was a red ribbon, worn by the re- 
formed drinker, so that the clubs became known as 
the Red Ribbon Reform Clubs. Others also en- 
tered into the work. In 1877, John B. Finch, one 
of the most knightly, energetic, and invincible men 
that ever donned armor in the great reform, lec- 
tured in Nebraska in the interests of the Red Rib- 
bon movement, securing a hundred thousand signa- 
tures to the pledge. 

Of much the same character as the Reynolds 
Reform Club movement was the work started by 
Francis Murphy, at about this same time, and 
known as the Blue Ribbon movement. Murphy 
was in prison in the city of Portland, for drunk- 
enness. He had ruined himself, and brought rags 
and shame to his family, through drink. "While 
in prison he was visited by Captain Cyrus Stur- 



Moeal Movements Since the War. 233 

devant, a Christian gentleman, and was induced 
to attend religious service. Murphy made a re- 
solve with God's help to walk in a better way. 
While yet in prison he tried to save others from 
drink. He started in as a lecturer in Portland. 
Being well received he went elsewhere, and his 
power grew. Laboring first through the adjoin- 
ing States, he turned westward, and soon the coun- 
try became his field. The winter of 1876-77 wit- 
nessed a remarkable work in Pittsburg. There 
were over sixty thousand signatures to the pledge, 
and more than five hundred saloons in Allegheny 
and neighboring counties closed up for want of 
business. Prom there Murphy went to Philadel- 
phia, where the Results were nearly equally great. 
The Murphy meetings, which were continued for 
years after, were characterized by great fervor and 
power. But the work was not closely organized, 
and the results were not as permanent and far- 
reaching as they might have been, on that account. 
The blue ribbon, which Murphy had adopted as 
the badge of abstinence, was introduced into Eng- 
land in 1878, when a similar work to that of Mur- 
phy and Reynolds was started there. 



234 A Century of Drink Reform. 

6. At the close of 1873 there occurred a new, 
and in some respects the most striking, phenome- 
non in the "whole history of temperance reform — 
an uprising of women, The Woman s Crusade. 

To the outside world this crusade appeared 
like a kind of second reign of terror, the crusaders 
being likened to the Trench women who filled the 
streets of Paris, an angry mob, during those awful 
days of the French Revolution. In fact, however, 
the women of this crusade were persons of highest 
Christian character and culture, wives and daugh- 
ters of governors, judges, clergymen, and of the 
leading professional and business men. Their 
weapons were not those of carnal warfare, but of 
the Spirit of the living God — song, prayer, en- 
treaty — mighty to the pulling down of the strong- 
holds of sin. In its intensity and contagion the 
crusade reminded one of the Washingtonian move- 
ment, begun in Baltimore in 1840. Only the lat- 
ter was entirely divorced from religion, while the 
cursade was the soul of religion itself. Then men 
— reformed men — appealed to men as brothers to 
cease drinking; now women — mothers, wives, 
daughters — appealed to the saloon-keeper to cease 



Moral Moveihexts Sixce the War. 235 

selling. The anguish of a woman's heart, upon 
whom the evils of the saloon always fall with most 
cruel and crushing weight, must now at last find 
expression. The wonder is that she had repressed 
her woe so long. 

The crusade broke out in Hillsboro, a college 
town in southwestern Ohio, on the day before 
Christmas, 1873. Dr. Dio Lewis, in a temperance 
lecture the night before, had related how his 
mother with a few friends had, by prayer, pre- 
vailed against a saloon that had ruined her home ; 
and he declared that the saloons could be closed 
in this way if women had only grace and courage 
and persistency enough. By a rising vote this idea 
was to be carried at once into execution. The 
names of seventy-five ladies of standing and in- 
fluence were enrolled. A meeting was appointed 
for the next morning at the Presbyterian Church. 
At this meeting a committee was appointed to 
draft an appeal to liquor-sellers. Mrs. Eliza J. 
Thompson, the wife of a judge and the daughter 
of an ex-governor, was placed at the head of the 
undertaking. She became the leader and the 
mother of the crusade. Before going to this morn- 



236 A Century of Drink Reform. 

ing meeting, her daughter had opened her Bible at 
the 146th Psalm, and feeling its peculiar appro- 
priateness, she told her mother that she believed it 
was especially intended for her. This psalm be- 
came the battle-hymn of the crusade. After prayer 
and organization, the women filed out of church, 
two by two, and singing "Give to the winds thy 
fears," they proceeded to the first dramseller. 
Every morning during the winter and spring these 
meetings of prayer were held; every saloon was 
visited, and nearly all were closed. 

The night following his address at Hillsboro, 
Dr. Dio Lewis spoke at Washington Court House, 
another town in southwestern Ohio. Here, too, a 
praying band was formed. The appeal with which 
these women went forth was as follows — the form 
generally used later: "Knowing, as you do, the 
fearful effects of intoxicating drinks, we, the 
women of Washington Court House, after earnest 
prayer and deliberation have decided to appeal to 
you to desist from the ruinous traffic, that our hus- 
bands and brothers, and especially our sons, be no 
longer exposed to this terrible temptation, and that 
we may no longer see them led into paths whicE 
go down to sin and bring both body and soul to 



Mokal Movements Sustce the War. 237 

destruction. We appeal to the better instincts of 
your heart, in the name of desolate homes, blasted 
hopes, ruined lives, widowed hearts, for the honor 
of our community, for our happiness, for the good 
name of our town, in the name of God who will 
judge you and us, for the sake of your own souls 
which are to be saved or lost. We beg, we implore 
you to cleanse yourselves from this heinous sin, 
and place yourselves in the ranks of those who are 
striving to elevate and ennoble themselves and 
their fellow-men. And to this we ask you to pledge 
yourselves.' 3 

Thus panoplied the band went forth the morn- 
ing after Christmas, while others remained at 
church to pray, and while the church bell kept toll- 
ing, telling to all the community that concerted 
prayer and appeal were moving against the saloons 
in their midst. Where admittance was denied 
them, the women knelt in the snow on the pave- 
ment. The second day witnessed the first surren- 
der, by a saloon-keeper, of his entire stock of 
liquor; and on the second of January it was an- 
nounced at a great mass-meeting that the last 
liquor-dealer had unconditionally surrendered. 



238 A Cextury of Deixk Reform. 

This movement, thus begun, spread like wild- 
fire. It covered the jSTorth Central States, crossed 
the Mississippi, swept through Iowa, Missouri, 
Kansas, and up into California and Oregon. East- 
ward it swept to the Atlantic. Its influence went 
out to the remotest parts of the land, even to the 
islands of the sea. In Ohio, the storm center of 
the movement, and where "Mother" Stewart be- 
came one of its foremost leaders, it was said that 
in two hundred and fifty towns the saloons had 
been closed as the result of the crusade. 

This blaze of enthusiasm was as brief as it had 
been intense. After that, what ? This : crystal- 
lization, organization. It led directly to the for- 
mation of that noble body of cultured, consecrated 
women, the largest number ever banded together 
in the cause of humanity, and the most potent per- 
sonal agency, perhaps, in the annals of the reform, 
namely — 

7. The Woman's Christian Temperance 
Union. 

This organization was effected at a conven- 
tion held in Cleveland, on November 18, 1874. 
During the preceding August, at Chautauqua, 



Mokal Movements Since the War. 239 

New York, it was agreed by a few earnest women 
that the fruits of the crusade must be gathered up. 
A temperance prayer-meeting was called, to which 
about fifty women responded and were present. 
At this meeting, over which Mrs. Jennie E. Will- 
ing presided and Mrs. Emily Huntington Miller 
acted as secretary, it was voted to send out a call 
to all temperance organizations composed of 
women, to hold conventions in their respective 
States and send delegates to a national convention 
to be held in Cleveland, as before mentioned. 

One hundred and thirty-five delegates, from 
more than a dozen States, responded to this call. 
An organization was effected, a plan of work 
adopted, and the following were elected as the 
first officers of the Union : President, Mrs. Annie 
Wittenmyer, of Pennsylvania; corresponding sec- 
retary, Miss Frances E. Willard, of Illinois; re- 
cording secretary, Mrs. Mary C. Johnson, of Xew 
York; treasurer, Mrs. Mary B. Ingham, of Ohio. 
An appeal was sent out "to the women of the great 
nations" for their co-operation, and a plan inau- 
gurated to appeal to the President, to Senators and 
Members of Congress, to Governors, and to all in 



210 A Ce^-xtey of Deexk Eefoe^i. 

authority, to lend the weight of their influence to 
the temperance cause. 

Thus, in the fires of that soul affliction which 
welded together at white heat the anguished hearts 
of womankind in the crusade, did this organiza- 
tion receive its baptism. This sacramental bless- 
ing was never lost. It was to give to that body a 
patience and persistence, a consecration so gen- 
uine, a courage so undaunted, methods so practical 
and appealing, as had never before been known. 
A resolution placed on record at the very organiza- 
tion of :L:s body reveals the spirit that banded 
these women together: "That recognizing the fact 
that our cause will be combated by mighty, deter- 
mined, and relentless forces, we will, trusting in 
Him who is the Prince of Peace, meet argument 
with argument, mis judgment with patience, de- 
nunciation with kindness, and all our difficulties 
and dangers with prayer." The badge of the 
Woman's Christian Temperance Union is a small 
bow of white ribbon: its motto, "For God and 
home and native land;*' its pledge, "I solemnly 
promise, God helping me, to abstain from all dis- 
tilled, fermented, and malt liquors, including 



Moral Move^iexts SrsrcE the Wak. 241 

wine, beer, and cider, and to employ all proper 
means to discourage the use of, and traffic in, the 
same." 

One of the prominent features in the early 
work of the Union was saloon visiting. It was 
soon learned, however, that the saloon is but an 
outpost of the enemy; that the real enemy lay in 
the rear and out of sight, entrenched behind breast- 
works of appetite and avarice, ignorance, and in- 
difference, of wrong customs and false ideals, of 
law and politics. More emphasis was therefore 
laid on the larger plan of work. There must be 
counter-attractions and substitutes for the saloon 
— coffee-houses, social rooms, and the like, pure 
water fountains, homes for the inebriate, instruc- 
tion for the young in church and school. The 
press must be utilized, literature distributed, lec- 
turers and evangelists and missionaries sent out, 
and bodies in authority, in Church and State, 
memorialized to lend the weight of their influence 
to the cause, in the promotion of right sentiment 
and the enactment and enforcement of right laws. 
In order better to accomplish this larger and varied 
work, the committee plan was changed, in 1880, 
16 



242 A Century or Drink Eeform. 

into the department plan of work — organization, 
preventive, educational, evangelistic, social, and 
legal — with, a capable and responsible person at 
the head of each department as superintendent. 
Under each of these six departments are a number 
of sub-departments, with superintendents. To 
this plan of organization has been due, in no small 
measure, the success of the Union in the various 
spheres of its activity. The Union Signal, an 
able paper published in Chicago, is the official 
organ of the National Union. 

From its beginning the Woman's Christian 
Temperance Union has had a large place in its 
program for work among the young. Juvenile or- 
ganizations were formed under the auspices of 
local unions, and auxiliary to them, in the various 
States. They bore different names, such as Juve- 
nile Unions, Bands of Hope, Cold Water Armies, 
True Blue Cadets, Cadets of Temperance, and 
Loyal Legions. Many of these had been in exist- 
ence for many years before. In 1886 a uniform 
plan of organization was adopted, and a uniform 
name, the Loyal Temperance Legion, with a na- 
tional superintendent at its head. 

Through the efforts of the Woman's Christian 



Moeal Movements Since the Wae. 243 

Temperance Union, or specifically, of Mrs. Mary 
H. Hunt, the superintendent of the department of 
scientific temperance instruction, in co-operation 
with the National Temperance Society and Pub- 
lication-house, text-books have been introduced 
into the schools, teaching the effects of alcohol 
upon the human system, and of narcotics. Begin- 
ning with Vermont and Connecticut, which passed 
such law in 1882, other States soon followed, until 
at the present time every State in the country 
requires scientific temperance instruction in its 
schools. Through the labors of the Woman's Chris- 
tian Temperance Union, again, by petition and ap- 
peal, the International Sunday-school Lesson Com- 
mittee has, since 1887, devoted one lesson in each 
quarter to temperance. Urom the same source also 
has come largely the present practice by most 
Churches, of using pure grape- juice — unfermented 
wine — at the communion service. Among the suc- 
cessful recent labors of the Union was that which 
resulted in the enactment, by Congress, of the 
anti-canteen law, which shuts liquor out from the 
army post exchanges, an act approved February 
2, 1901. 



244 A Century of Drink Reform. 

The example of the women in the United States 
led to the organization of the Dominion Woman's 
Christian Temperance Union in Canada, in 1885, 
and led to its introduction into England. Mrs. 
Mary Clement Leavitt was sent as the first round- 
the-world missionary of the National Woman's 
Christian Temperance Union, beginning her jour- 
ney in 1885. The result was the formation of a 
World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union, 
which has now branches and societies in many 
lands. 

The National Woman's Christian Temperance 
Union has strenuously advocated the ballot for 
women, partly on the general principle of right, 
partly for the reason that in this particular reform 
woman should have the right thus to make her sen- 
timent effective in law — she who, while suffering 
most, has been denied a hearing and redress. The 
work of the Union has been distinctively a work 
of education and moral appeal. While it advo- 
cates the abolition of the liquor traffic by law, it 
is a non-political organization. All parties have 
been appealed to, that they further in their legisla- 
tive or executive capacity, or both, the cause of 



Moral Movements Sij^ce the Wak. 245 

temperance and prohibition. The general princi- 
ple of the Union, oft repeated, is this : "We will 
lend our influence to that party, by whatever name 
called, which shall furnish the best embodiment 
of prohibition principles, and will most surely pro- 
tect our homes." When at the national convention 
in St. Louis, in the fall of 1884, resolutions were 
adopted, after all parties had been appealed to, 
that the Union would lend its influence "to that 
national political organization which declares in 
its platform for national prohibition and home 
protection," adopted by a vote of 188 to 48, — this 
caused dissent, and led to a defection, through the 
leadership and persistent purpose of Mrs. J. Ellen 
Foster, of Iowa, and to the formation, in 1890, of 
a separate organization, under the name, "The 
Xon-Partisan "Woman's Christian Temperance 
Union." The head of the regular national organ- 
ization, for several years now, is Mrs. Lillian M. 
If. Stevens, of Maine. 

To name all who have rendered distinguished 
service in the cause of temperance would make 
too long a list. 'No mention of woman's work in 
temperance would be complete, however, without 



246 A Ce:ntuky of Deink: Reform. 

the name of that gracious and gifted woman, so 
wise to plan, and strong to lead ; respected and be- 
loved of the people ; the uncrowned queen of Amer- 
ican democracy — Miss Frances E. Willard. Re- 
signing her position as dean of the Woman's Col- 
lege and Professor of ^Esthetics in Northwestern 
University, in June, 1874, Miss Willard began at 
once her career in the temperance cause. The 
scenes of the woman's crusade had stirred her. 
She was present at the organization of the 
Woman's Christian Temperance Union that same 
fall in Cleveland, as a delegate from Illinois, and 
presented at that convention, with grasp and fore- 
sight, a plan of work that was laid out upon the 
general lines which have since been followed by 
the Union. Elected its first corresponding secre- 
tary, Miss Willard was in 1879 elected president 
of the National Woman's Christian Temperance 
Union, a position she held for nearly twenty years, 
until her death. Eor a number of years before her 
death she was also the president of the World's 
Woman's Christian Temperance Union. 

During all these years Miss Willard was not 
merely the most conspicuous and commanding 



Moral Movements Since the War. 247 

figure in woman's work for temperance, but she 
represented in her rich intellectual endowments 
and Christian culture, her lofty and discerning 
purpose, her rare balance of judgment, and her 
wide sympathies, the best exponent of the entire 
modern movement for woman's emancipation. In 
her passing away, near the going out of the cen- 
tury — she died in JSTew York City, February 18, 
1898 — the cause of humanity lost one of its 
stanchest friends, and among women its ablest ad- 
vocate. 



(II.) 

CHAPTEE VIII. 

Legal and Political Measures Since the War. 

That the prohibitory laws of the fifties, to- 
gether with the heavy internal revenue tax of 1862 
should awaken the liquor interests to an attitude 
at least of defense^ was certainly not unexpected. 
They met the issue where, by the logic of evolu- 
tion in temperance reform, and in the exigency of 
war, it had been brought, namely, in politics. The 
National Brewers' Association, organized in 1862, 
announced as one of its chief objects the wielding 
of political influence, to see "that its interests be 
vigorously and energetically prosecuted before the 
legislative and executive departments." It soon 
became evident that all prohibitory laws were, by 
concerted action, to be repealed. Aggressive cam- 
paigns were carried on in a number of States to 
this end. Of the prohibitory laws passed before 
the war, Delaware voted for repeal in 1857; Ne- 
braska and Indiana in 1858; Ehode Island in 
248 



Legal a:xd Political Measures. 249 

1863; Massachusetts in 1868, re-enacting the law 
the following year, and repealing again in 1875 ; 
Connecticut in 1872 ; Michigan in 1875. 

As legislation is secured through political ac- 
tion, the determined and aggressive aim of the 
liquor interests henceforth was to influence and 
control the action of political parties. The Na- 
tional Brewers' Congress held in Chicago, in 1867, 
adopted the following resolution: "That we will 
use all means to stay the progress of this fanatical 
party, and to secure our rights as individual citi- 
zens, and that we will sustain no candidate, of 
whatever party, in any election, who is in any way 
disposed toward the total abstinence cause." By 
"this fanatical party" was meant the temperance 
contingent as it was found in, and working 
through, existing party organizations. This was 
the first clear announcement of that business- 
above-party, balance-of -power policy, at once the 
annoyance and fear of the political helmsman, by 
means of which the liquor traffic has been able to 
maintain a prolonged existence to the present day, 
in spite of the combined agencies of reform. 

These things awakened those whose lives were 



250 A Century of Drij^k Reform. 

wrapped up in the temperance cause to a new and 
most serious danger. "If the adversaries of tem- 
perance shall continue to receive the aid and coun- 
tenance of present political parties, we shall not 
hesitate to break over political bands and seek re- 
dress through the ballot-box/' so the State Tem- 
perance Convention of Pennsylvania, held at Har- 
risburg, in February, 1867, had declared. The 
Brewers' Congress in 1868, in session at Buffalo, 
repeated in yet stronger language the resolutions 
of the preceding year, determined "to deprive the 
political and Puritanical temperance men of the 
power they have so long exercised in the councils 
of the political parties in this country." And 
when the temperance people observed that it was 
true, that they were being deprived of their power 
in "the councils of the political parties," and that 
the liquor interests were supplanting them in the 
exercise of that power, a growing conviction forced 
itself upon them of the necessity of independent 
political action. 

Such step was soon to be taken. The Eight 
Worthy Grand Lodge of Good Templars, the su- 
preme body of that order, had declared for the 



Legal aistd Political Measures. 251 

formation of such separate party at its session in 
1868. The same body, in May, 1869, in session 
at Oswego, Xew York, repeated the declaration 
and recommended the calling of a convention for 
that purpose. A committee of five was appointed 
to issue a call, consisting of Rev. John Russell, of 
Detroit, one of the very first to advocate independ- 
ent political action; Professor Daniel Wilkins, 
of Bloomington; J. A. Spencer, of Cleveland; 
John jST. Stearns, of Xew York ; and James Black, 
of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The committee is- 
sued the following call : 
"To the Friends of Temperance, Law, and Order 

in the United States : 

"The moral, social, and political evils of in- 
temperance and the non-enforcement of liquor laws 
are so fearful and prominent, and the causes 
thereof are so entrenched and protected by govern- 
mental authority and party interest, that the sup- 
pression of these evils calls upon the friends of 
temperance; and the duties connected with home, 
religion, and public peace demand that old polit- 
ical ties and associations shall be sundered, and a 
distinct political party, with prohibition of the 



252 A Centuky of Dbink Eeform. 

traffic in intoxicating drinks as the most promi- 
nent feature, shall be organized. 

"The distinctive political issues that have for 
years past interested the American people are now 
comparatively unimportant, or fully settled, and 
in this aspect the time is auspicious for a decided 
and practical effort to overcome the dread power 
of the liquor trade. 

"The undersigned do therefore earnestly in- 
vite all friends of temperance and the enforcement 
of law, and favorable to distinct political action 
for the promotion of the same, to meet in general 
mass convention in the city of Chicago, on Wednes- 
day, the 1st day of September, 1869, at 11 o'clock 
A. M., for the purpose of organizing for distinct 
political action for temperance." 

The call was signed by more than fifty promi- 
nent men interested in the cause, representing the 
different religious bodies, professions, and walks 
in life. How long, O Lord! Surely the time 
is now at hand. At last, at last; after the most 
determined and vigilant pursuit of the trail, en- 
countered and worsted, eluding his pursuers again 
and again, the devourer has at last been tracked 
to his lair. Now for the fight unto death ! 



Legal axd Political Measures. 253 

Pursuant to call, nearly five hundred delegates, 
from twenty States, met in convention in Chicago 
on the day appointed. James Black was made 
chairman, and J. A. Spencer secretary of the con- 
vention. A declaration of principles was set forth ; 
an address, prepared by Gerrit Smith, was issued 
to the American people ; and a party organized for 
independent political action. It was named the 
National Prohibition Party. Around this ensign 
all the temperance sentiment of the country was 
to gather for a final campaign of victory. The 
children of this world shall, in this instance at 
least, not outgeneral in wisdom the children of 
light. 

The history of drink reform had now entered 
upon its final epoch. The successive steps in the 
movement had reached a logical and inevitable con- 
clusion at this point, Xothing new has since been 
added; the last factor in the problem had been dis- 
covered. The real question since then has been, 
not to find the difficulty or a solution, but to apply 
to the manifest difficulty a solution already found. 
The proposed remedy has been bitterly assailed by 
friend and foe alike of temperance; but it has 



254: A Century of Drink Reform. 

never been fully or fairly tried. Many things, 
however, have been tried, all of which are inter- 
esting and suggestive to the student of the reform. 

1. The Citizens' Law and Order League. 

This originated in Chicago, in 1877. During 
the railway riots of that year it was observed that 
a large proportion of the rioters were half -drunken 
boys. Subsequent observations revealed the fact 
that a large army of such boys were habitual pat- 
rons of Chicago saloons, and were there receiving 
the beginnings of a transformation into drunkards, 
vagrants, and criminals. A few earnest Christian 
men sought a remedy, and a "Citizens' League of 
Chicago for the Suppression of the Sale of Liquor 
to Minors" was organized, with Frederick F. El- 
mendorf as president, and Andrew Paxton as pros- 
ecuting agent. The first aim of the movement was 
to preserve the rising generation from habits of 
dissipation and vice. Starting with this single 
object, the purpose and scope of the movement soon 
broadened, including the enforcement of every re- 
strictive liquor law, and the laws against gambling 
and other forms of vice. 

Meeting with such success in Chicago, the 



Legal axd Political Measures. 255 

movement spread to other cities and States. In 
1883, at a convention in Tremont Temple, Bos- 
ton, a national organization was effected, taking 
the name, "The Citizens' Law and Order League 
of the United States." The growth of the move- 
ment has been rapid and spontaneous from the 
beginning. It had the sympathy and support of 
influential men from all classes and creeds. Mr. 
C. C. Bonney, of Chicago, was prominent in this 
movement, and for some time the head of the or- 
ganization. 

Although not in existence at the present time 
as a national organization, the law and order move- 
ment has done good service in toning up a lax pub- 
lic sentiment on the vital principle of the suprem- 
acy of law, and in showing that even where offi- 
cials are inclined to do their duty in this respect, 
they must have back of them the co-operation and 
support of a determined body of constituent citi- 
zens. Local and State leagues are still doing effect- 
ive work in many places. There is probably no 
more efficient organization of the kind to-day than 
the Law and Order League of Connecticut, whose 
continued success has been due to its capable and 



256 A Century of Dei^k Reform. 

energetic secretary and manager, Mr. Samuel P. 
Thrasher, of Xew Haven. 

2. The High License Policy. 

To enforce the law against the sale of liquor to 
minors, and the other countless restrictions placed 
upon the saloon business, was a difficult task. A 
more severe and practical restrictive policy, tem- 
perance men said, would be to raise the license fee. 
This will eliminate the lower and more objection- 
able resorts, it was thought, who can not pay such 
fee. The number of saloons, too, will be reduced, 
and the temptations to drink will be just to that 
extent lessened. Furthermore, by bringing the 
business thus within narrower limits, the task of 
police supervision will become easier and more ef- 
fective ; and, again, those who pay the high license 
fee for the privilege of doing business, it was 
thought, will themselves help to enforce the law 
against any who might attempt to sell without li- 
cense. The larger revenue, lastly, thus derived 
from the drink traffic will better compensate the 
public for the evils it suffers from the traffic. Be- 
sides all this, some of the most ardent temperance 
men thought that this first severe restriction would 



Legal akd Political Measures. 257 

prepare the way for further and severer restric- 
tions, until the traffic should gradually be taxed to 
death, or prohibited. 

In this movement for high license Nebraska 
took the initiative, in the passage of the Slocumb 
law in 1881. This law fixed the minimum license 
fee at $500 a year for towns with a population less 
than ten thousand, and $1,000 a year for cities 
with a population of ten thousand or more. The 
framers and supporters of this measure were radi- 
cal temperance men, John B. Finch among them, 
believers in the principle of prohibition, who 
looked upon this measure as a serious inroad upon 
the traffic, and an important step towards its com- 
plete destruction. 

Missouri and Illinois, beginning in 1884, fol- 
lowed the example of Nebraska, fixing the mini- 
mum fee at $550 and $500, respectively. Most of 
the States have since then enacted high license 
laws, either fixing the minimum annual fee at 
$500, or thereabouts, or providing a sliding scale, 
varying with the size of the city, or with the 
amount of business done, or with other contingen- 
cies. In these cases the fees range from about 
17 



258 A Century of Dsiptk Refoem. 

$300 to $1,000, or as high as $2,000 even, a year. 
In Massachusetts it costs not less than about $1,300 

to do a regular retail liquor business for one year. 

The high license policy, which was originated 
by temperance men and opposed by liquor men, 
as a severe restriction and a step toward prohibi- 
tion, has since then been espoused by liquor men 
and more and more opposed by temperance men, as 
the most effectual barrier to prohibition. Except 
that it yields revenue, it has disappointed its 
friends on every count. This one success is now its 
very condemnation. 

3. The Dispensary System. 

Another fact had been discovered. The rea- 
son the liquor-seller breaks over the restrictions 
imposed upon his business and sells to minors, to 
drunkards, on Sundays, and at all hours of the 
night, and in fact at any time or place that a man 
is on hand to ask for a drink, is his desire to make 
money. Indeed, this is the reason itself, it was 
discovered, that he enters the business at all, rather 
than from any religious or philanthropic motive to 
uplift his fellow-men. And the reason he can pay 
even a high license fee and still prosper, is because 



Legal and Political Measuees. 259 

there is profit in the business. This was the dis- 
covery. 

The path of procedure, then, became plain: 
eliminate the element of private profit. To this 
end the business must be taken out of the hands 
who administer it for private gain, and placed in 
the hands of salaried agents who shall make no 
extra profit by pushing the sale. 

This idea did not originate wholly in America. 
The principle involved here had been caught sight 
of in Sweden many years before. As early as 1865 
the city of Gothenburg applied this principle par- 
tially to the sale of spirits. The city did not itself 
go directly into the business, but granted a monop- 
oly of the sale of spirits to a private company, or 
bolag, to operate a limited number of public- 
houses, where spirits could only be obtained in 
connection with food. All the profits above a divi- 
dend of five or six per cent on the capital invested, 
the bolag hands over to the public; being at the 
present time divided between the city, the province, 
and the Agricultural Society. The bolag, or com- 
pany, is required to place responsible managers in 
charge, paying them a salary, and to secure strict 



260 A Century of Drink Reform. 

supervision of all public-houses by private inspect- 
ors and by co-operating with the police. The sale of 
malt and vinous liquors is not farmed out and 
monopolized in this way. 

In Sweden, where this system largely prevails, 
the companies are required to furnish food, and 
the drinking places are made attractive, the aim 
appearing to be to make the eating feature pre- 
dominant. In jSTorway the companies, or samlags, 
as they are there called, furnish no food, no chairs, 
papers, amusements, or accommodations; dis- 
mantling the place of every feature of attraction. 
The customer swallows his dram and gets out. The 
profits here, above the dividend, until recently 
went to philanthropic enterprises ; but on account 
of a growing protest to this practice, they now go 
almost entirely into the national treasury. These 
are the main features of this system, which is 
named, from the city of its origin, the Gothenburg 
System. 

It remained for the State of South Carolina 
to make the first thorough-going application of this 
principle (i. e., eliminating the element of private 
gain) by taking full charge of the business of 



Legal and Political Measures. 261 

liquor-selling, and pocketing the entire profits. 
The dispensary system went into effect July 1, 
1893. The State got into the white apron, put on 
the proper smile, and waited for customers. It was 
not that the people wanted it so. In the election 
of 1892 the drink question had been submitted to 
them for an expression of sentiment, and they had 
voted for entire prohibition by a majority of eight 
thousand. A bill to this effect, providing for com- 
plete prohibition, was brought before the legisla- 
ture, but it was headed off with a dispensary sub- 
stitute, which was brought in and rushed through 
by the friends of the governor, Benjamin Till- 
man, and signed by him. 

Under this act the State has entire control of 
the liquor business, and all who handle liquor are 
its salaried agents. A State Board of Control ex- 
ercises supreme supervision. A State commis- 
sioner is the agent through whom all liquors must 
be purchased by county and local dispensers. The 
dispensers are appointed by county boards, upon 
application indorsed by a majority of the voters 
of the town or city in which liquor is to be sold. 
The liquor is sold in sealed packages, as purchased 



262 A Century of Drink Reform. 

from the State authorities, and is not to be opened 
or drunk on the premises. The profits on sales go 
to the State, county, and local treasuries. These 
are the general provisions of the law, though in its 
details it has been modified many times. The 
dispensary system is in operation also in a num- 
ber of counties and towns in Alabama, Georgia, 
North Carolina, and elsewhere. South Dakota re- 
pealed her prohibitory law in 1897, and passed a 
dispensary act, which was done in such hurry that 
it was found to be unconstitutional; which leaves 
the State now under license. 

To those who hold that all permissive measures 
relative to the liquor traffic are wrong in principle, 
the dispensary system offers but little satisfaction. 
For a State to go directly into a business that de- 
bauches her citizens makes the wrong, in fact, only 
the more grievous. On the other hand, those who 
rest all legislation relative to the drink traffic on 
the basis of expediency solely, they, too, will find 
but little to encourage them in the results that have 
attended the operation of this system. In South 
Carolina the consumption of liquor has not been 
lessened; the criminal budget has not been re- 



Legal axd Political Measures. 263 

duced ; illicit sales have not ceased ; and the ques- 
tion has not been eliminated from politics. To 
pay a man a salary and set him over a business, 
and expect him to do as little business as possible 
— this is an anomalous situation. 

These measures and expedients, just named, 
have to do with the policy of regulation, stopping 
short of the complete prohibition of the liquor traf- 
fic — although the Law and Order Leagues work 
under prohibition as well as under license. We 
will now look briefly at efforts that have been made 
during this period for the complete suppression of 
the liquor traffic. 

4. State Constitutional Prohibition. 

The prohibitory laws of the fifties were simply 
statutory enactments by the different State legis- 
latures, passed in response to the sentiment of the 
people. The successive repeals, by the different 
State legislatures, of most of these laws after a few 
years, revealed the insufficiency of this policy. It 
led to this reflection : the constituency of a legisla- 
ture changes with every election. A statute law 
enacted by one legislature may be repealed by a 
subsequent legislature, and this without direct 



264 A Centuby of Dbhstk Reform. 

reference to tlie sentiment of the people, which may 
remain unchanged in its favor. The likelihood of 
legislatures doing this very thing became enhanced 
just in proportion as the liquor interests became a 
political power, and held a club over the head of 
every candidate for office — or slipped a purse into 
his pocket after he got into office. To rescue the 
temperance cause from this precarious situation, 
it was seen that the prohibition policy must not be 
left for its fate in the hands of the office-seeker 
and politician. It must be safeguarded by the 
people, where the law will not be sacrificed to serve 
personal or party interests. The people must 
therefore, by vote, insert a provision in their State 
constitution which will at once compel the legis- 
lature to enact a prohibitory law, and at the same 
time will prevent that body from repealing the law 
until the people themselves have first voted to that 
effect. 

Thus originated the movement for State consti- 
tutional prohibition, which began its success in 
1880, and ended, after many hotly contested con- 
flicts, in 1890. Kansas, first in the irrepressible 
conflict of slavery, was also to take the lead in 
adopting this, the most effectual method so far, in 



Legal and Political Measures. 265 

this equally irrepressible conflict. It had been pro- 
posed in other States, but Kansas was the first to 
carry it into effect. The constitutional amend- 
ment was carried by a vote of the people of Kan- 
sas, in 1880 ; going into effect May 1, 1881. Iowa 
passed a similar amendment by popular vote, in 
1882. On a slight error in transcription the 
amendment was declared unconstitutional ; but the 
legislature, yielding to the pressure of an aroused 
and determined public sentiment, enacted a pro- 
hibitory statute law, which went into effect July 
4, 1884. Maine, strengthening her statute law of 
years' standing, passed a constitutional amendment 
in 1884; Rhode Island in 1886; North Dakota 
and South Dakota in 1889. In the following 
States the proposed prohibitory amendment was 
defeated at the polls: Ohio, in 1885 — the amend- 
ment failing to receive a majority of all the votes 
cast, though it had a large majority (82,000) of 
all who voted on the question; Tennessee, Michi- 
gan, Texas, and Oregon, in 1887; West Virginia, 
in 1888 ; Washington, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, 
Massachusetts, and New Hampshire (complete 
prohibition), in 1889; Nebraska, in 1890. The 



266 A Century of Drink Reform. 

aggregate vote in these several States — all of them, 
where prohibition carried, and where it did not — 
was: Against, 2,072,722; for, 1,758,895; with 
nearly a million not voting either way. This en- 
tire movement was toward settling the drink ques- 
tion a State at a time, and by a strictly non-par- 
tisan, popular vote. 

5. National Constitutional Prohibition. 

This was a hope only, labored for, but never 
consummated. 

While temperance people generally were turn- 
ing toward State prohibition as the remedy for 
the defective statutory prohibition, a number, see- 
ing the necessary inadequacy of any mere State 
legislation on this question, went a step farther 
and argued for national constitutional prohibition. 
State prohibition is good, they agreed, but national 
prohibition is for obvious reasons better, and the 
only final remedy. The method for securing the 
latter was to be precisely the same as in the for- 
mer instance, namely, the non-partisan method. 
As in the former instance the legislature submitted 
the amendment to the people for their approval, 
so Congress, in this instance, was to submit such 
amendment. 



Legal a^d Political Measures. 267 

The United States Constitution may be 
amended by a two-thirds vote of both houses of 
Congress proposing the amendment, which, when 
ratified by three-fourths of the States, through 
their legislatures or by special representative con- 
ventions, shall become a part of the Constitution 
and fimdamental law of the land. Let temperance 
men therefore see to it that such senators and mem- 
bers of Congress shall be elected from their several 
States and congressional districts as are favorable 
toward a prohibitory amendment. It matters not 
what his party affiliations are, so he will only vote 
for the amendment. It matters not even whether 
he himself is for license or for prohibition, so he 
will only agree to have this question submitted to 
the people for their judgment. And ''what polit- 
ical party which cares for political freedom, can 
deny to the millions who desire to be heard upon 
this tremendous question . . . the exercise 
of this fundamental right ?" In this way it was 
thought to be comparatively easy to get such 
amendment before the people, and once in the 
forum of the people, to carry it to victory. 

The most earnest and hopeful advocate of na- 



268 A Century of Drink Reform. 

tional constitutional prohibition was, perhaps, 
Hon. Henry W. Blair, of New Hampshire, from 
whom the foregoing words are quoted. Senator A. 
H. Colquitt, of Georgia, also, was as pronounced 
for prohibition as he was distinguished and hon- 
ored in public service, and tried for years to get 
Congress to act on this question. Mr. Blair was 
the first to introduce into Congress a joint resolu- 
tion, in IS 76, while a member of the House of Rep- 
resentatives, proposing an amendment to the Con- 
stitution. This amendment was made to apply to 
spirituous liquors only, leaving the traffic in malt 
and vinous liquors for each State to decide; and 
was to go into effect with the year 1900. The rea- 
son for making the amendment cover half the 
ground only was the hope that it would, in this 
form, stand a better chance of carrying ; and that, 
when once in force, the destruction of the traffic in 
fermented liquors would follow. Mr. Blair in- 
troduced this resolution in every succeeding Con- 
gress, changing the form of the amendment, after 
a few years, to complete prohibition. 

In the meantime, in 1SS4, at the national con- 
vention of the Republican party, strong efforts 



Legal a£td Political Measures. 269 

were made to induce that party to declare in its 
platform in favor of submitting the question of 
such amendment to the people. A resolution, 
drafted by Senator Blair, was presented to the con- 
vention by Senator Kollins, and Miss Frances Wil- 
lard ; the president of the Woman's Christian Tem- 
perance Union, spoke before the committee — to 
quote from Blair — a like an angel from heaven." 

But the seed fell on stony ground. 

6. The National League for the Suppression 
of the Liquor Traffic — Non-Partisan and Non- 
Sectarian. 

The League was organized in Boston on Jan- 
uary 1, 1885. The bitter animosities awakened 
by the Presidential campaign of 1884, on account 
of the^intrusion of the drink issue into national 
politicly the Prohibition party, led many to the 
conviction that the temperance cause was being 
hazarded in thus being tied to the fortunes of par- 
tisan politics. It was in opposition, therefore, to 
party prohibition that the League was formed. 
What the prohibition party sought to achieve 
through separate party action the originators of 
this League averred could be accomplished only 



270 A Century. of Drink Reform. 

by non-partisan action, the voice of all the people. 
The former, or party method, divides the tem- 
perance sentiment of the country; the latter, or 
non-partisan method, unites it. Thus "thrust 
forth by Providence, in a great public exigency/' 
the League was launched under circumstances 
most auspicious. Rev. Daniel Dorchester, promi- 
nent in temperance work and literature, was made 
its president, and Mrs. J. Ellen Foster, its gen- 
eral secretary. Among its other officers and di- 
rectors were, Hon. John D. Long, Hon. John 
Wanamaker, Hon. Henry Metcalf, Judge Daniel 
Agnew, Rev. Edward Everett Hale, Rev. Albert 
H. Plumb, Hon. John Farwell, Mrs. Mary A. 
Livermore. 

The League called upon persons of all classes 
and creeds to work and vote against the liquor 
traffic in every way, and everywhere, without ref- 
erence to party, or within existing party lines by 
regular means of procedure. Attention was called 
to the fact that the dozen or more prohibition State 
laws enacted before the war were passed without 
the existence of a "third party," and that "all the 
wonderful advances of the temperance reformation 



Legal and Political Measures. 271 

from 1826 to I860, moral and social transforma- 
tions scarcely if ever equaled, were effected on a 
non-partisan basis." 

Over two million pages of literature were 
printed during the first twelvemonth of the 
League's existence. The League died not long 
after. 

7. The Anti-Saloon Republican Movement. 

The Presidential campaign of 1884 was the 
most memorable since the days of slavery. The 
Prohibition party had purposely postponed its 
nominating convention that year until after the 
national conventions of both the larger parties 
had been held. Some expression favorable to the 
temperance cause was eagerly looked for from one 
or the other of these parties. Not only the Pro- 
hibition party, but the wider temperance interests 
of the country, were represented at both conven- 
tions, to make appeal on behalf of a common cause. 
To this appeal the Democratic platform responded : 
"We oppose sumptuary laws which vex the citi- 
zen and interfere with personal liberty." The 
Republican platform declared: "The Republic- 
ans of the United States, in national convention 



272 A Century of Deink Reform. 

assembled, renew their allegiance to the principles 
upon which they have triumphed in six successive 
Presidential elections." 

The complete ignoring of the temperance ques- 
tion by the Republican party led to a considerable 
defection from its ranks, including such men as 
Governor John P. St. John, General Clinton B. 
Fisk, and John B. Gough. The tenor of this revolt 
is best expressed in Gougk's own words : 'Tor for- 
ty-two years I have been fighting the liquor trade 
— the trade that has robbed me of seven of the best 
years of my life. I have long voted the Repub- 
lican ticket, hoping always for help in my contest 
from the Republican party. But we have been 
expecting something from that party in vain, and 
now, when they have treated the most respectful 
appeal from the most respectful men in this coun- 
try with silent contempt. I say it is time for us to 
leave off trusting, and express our opinion of that 
party." 

The defeat of the Republican party in that 
campaign, for the first time in a quarter of a cen- 
tury, — a defeat due largely to the non-committal 
attitude of that party on the drink question, and 



Legal and Political Measures. 273 

the consequent largely increased vote of the Prohi- 
bition party, — led to that interesting phenomenon, 
the Anti-Saloon Republican Movement. This dif- 
fered from the Xational League, just mentioned, 
in that it was avowedly partisan. What the Prohi- 
bition party sought to accomplish through sepa- 
rate, or "third party," effort, and the Xational 
League through popular, non-partisan action, this 
movement sought to attain through the Republican 
party. It originated within that party, with those 
who, while believing in prohibition, were also 
deeply attached to the name and traditions of the 
Republican party; who believed that this party, 
which had been brought into being on a great moral 
issue, and had carried that issue to a glorious con- 
summation, was able also to carry through the 
great temperance reform. To commit the Repub- 
lican party uncompromisingly to that issue was 
the object of this movement. It originated with 
the temperance Republicans of Kansas. To "save 
the grand old party from disintegration/' and in 
full hope of settling the drink question, a call was 
issued by Albert Griffin, editor of the Manhattan 
Nationalist, on December 1, 1885, for a national 
18 



274 A Ceutttby of Drixe: Eefoem. 

convention of Republican foes of the liquor traffic, 
to meet in Toledo the following May; declaring 
that the time had come when this issue must be 
squarely met and fought out, and that "the Eepub- 
lican party must and will mount a temperance 
platform." 

Such language, however, Mr. Griffin found on 
his tour through the Eastern States, was too rad- 
ical to be acceptable to party leaders, and but lit- 
tle enthusiasm was manifested. The call was then 
withdrawn and a second call was issued, framed 
in more judicious speech, for a national confer- 
ence to be held in Chicago, September 16, 1886. 
Conferences were held in a number of States to 
elect delegates. Some two hundred representa- 
tives were present at the Chicago conference. Sen- 
ator Henry W. Blair was the temporary chairman, 
and Hon. William "Windoni, one of the best men 
the party ever had, was made permanent chairman 
of the convention. The party press had not been 
wholly friendly to this movement, and not many 
of the influential party managers were present. 
The convention adopted a platform, or declaration 
of principles, and selected a national committee, 
with Albert Griffin as chairman. 



Legal and Political, Measures. 275 

At the approach of the Presidential campaign 
of 188 8, a second conference was called to meet in 
New York, on May 2 and 3, 1888. "The Anti- 
Saloon Republican movement has now reached a 
magnitude and a momentum which nothing can 
withstand/' the call declared. "It no longer pleads 
for a hearing. It commands compliance. It pro- 
poses to place the Republican party where it be- 
longs, positively and finally on the side of home 
and public safety, as against the saloon system and 
its destructive work. . . . Speaking for an over- 
whelming majority of Republican voters and good 
citizens, we respectfully, but most urgently, ask 
our brethren of the Republican National Conven- 
tion, which is to meet in Chicago in June, to in- 
corporate in their platform of principles a declara- 
tion of hostility to the saloon as clear and as em- 
phatic as the English language can make it." The 
conference sent a deputation, headed by Dr. H. K. 
Carroll, to plead the cause before the platform 
committee at the Republican national convention. 

This seed again fell on stony ground. The 
convention platform made this declaration : "We 
reaffirm our unswerving devotion to . the 



276 A Century of Dkixk Refobm. 

autonomy reserved to the States under the Con- 
stitution; to the personal rights and liberties of 
the citizens in all the States and Territories of 
the Union." Just before adjournment, however, 
several days after the platform had been adopted, 
the convention, on prudent second thought, tacked 
on the following "Boutelle" resolution : "The first 
concern of all good government is the virtue and 
sobriety of the people, and the purity of the home. 
The Republican party cordially sympathizes with 
all wise and well-directed efforts for the promo- 
tion of temperance and morality," — which was 
scarcely either as clear or as emphatic as the Eng- 
lish language could have made it. 

Soon after this the Anti-Saloon Republican 
movement, which had enlisted in its behalf some 
of the best men and women in the party, passed 
into history. 

8. The National Anti-Saloon League. 

This is the latest agency in the field, to many 
a kind of David of the Lord's host, which, with 
onmi-partisanship as its sling, and agitation, legis- 
lation, and enforcement, as its missiles, is to de- 
stroy that arrogant Goliath, the American saloon. 



Legal and Political Measuees. 277 

This organization seeks to enlist all existing tem- 
perance forces in united and aggressive work. It 
is affiliated with no party, and has no party ends 
to serve; members of all parties work together 
under it. In this it differs from the other move- 
ments which went before it. The Prohibition 
party seeks to overthrow the liquor traffic through 
"third party action ;" the Anti-Saloon Republican 
movement sought to attain this end through the 
Republican party; the National League, through 
any means except through the Prohibition party, 
— it being really a move in hostility to that party. 
The Anti-Saloon League is not sectarian, yet it 
is essentially Christian, — the Church at work for 
temperance, engaging with weapons both of spir- 
itual and of carnal warfare its most opposing and 
destructive foe. Unity, Perseverance, Victory, 
are its watchwords. 

The Anti-Saloon League labors for practical 
results. While the destruction of the saloon and 
the liquor traffic is its ultimate goal, it insists on 
doing the immediate best thing. Where it can not 
destroy, it seeks to cripple. By insisting on the 
enforcement of existing restrictive laws; by urg- 



275 A Cesttuby of Dbi:;i Eefoem. 

ing the passage of nore stringent and prohibitive 
laws; and by literature and agitation awakening 
a sustaining public sentiment, the League is labor- 
ing in every possible and practical way to hamper, 
restrict, restrain, close in and kill, the open, legal- 
iz-i !:•:/.; :r :r:.±:. 

The first Anti-Saloon League was formed in 
Oberlin, Ohio, in September. 1593. A national 
organization was effected in Washington, Decem- 
ber 15. 1505. T::e League is : 
in ^P'";i^T ^.j. ~ne States an/i T^ 



It 



its work, scattering literature, and employing the 
entire time of some two hundred men, two-thirds 
of them regularly ordained clergymen. Bev. P. A. 
Baker is the present general superintendent, with 

headquarters a: Columbus, Ohio. 



(HI.) 
CHAPTER IX. 

Ground Won and Ground of Conflict. 

In the long struggle for sobriety, which has 
been waged with unprecedented, almost unabated, 
vigor during the century just closed, two great 
and decisive issues have been successively fought 
and won. The first has established a correct per- 
sonal principle for the individual; the second, a 
correct public policy for the State. These are, 
in turn : 

1. Total abstinence from intoxicating liquors 
as a beverage. 

This proposition has really passed the stage 
of argument. Time settles some things, and this 
must be considered one of them. After one hundred 
years of earnest debate, when the champions of 
both sides have been heard, it is time, in the parlia- 
ment of free discussion, to apply the rule of 
closure. Xo case in law can drag on endlessly. 
When the evidence is all in, and the bearing of this 
279 



280 A Century of Drink Keform. 

evidence on the case at hand and its relation to the 
law in question has been set forth, the case goes to 
the jury for a verdict. It is many years now 
since the Christian conscience, on gathering evi- 
dence from the drinking customs of society, first 
gave its decision that even the moderate regular 
use of strong drink is indefensible. Upon every 
subsequent appeal this verdict has only been re- 
affirmed, and upon increasingly strong and univer- 
sal testimony. That verdict, bearing to-day the 
seal of the best thought and best life in Christen- 
dom, the tribunal of ultimate appeal, must be con- 
sidered final. Judgment is already being served ; 
beginning, as always, with the house of God. 

The findings in the case are, in substance, as 
follows : 

First — The liquor habit is a fearful habit. 
Men become in bondage to it with fetters as cruel 
and hopeless as ever shackled felon or slave. There 
is no drinking community that has not its slaves 
to this appetite. Under the power of this habit 
a man not only undermines his health, squanders 
his substance, and brings himself and his family 
to want; but what is worse, he loses his self -re- 



Ground of Conflict. 281 

spect and the respect of his fellow-men. His own 
manhood, the dearest interests of his family, the 
most sacred things in life — all are sacrificed to his 
love for liquor. He loses his interest in events 
around him, and becomes gradually insensible to 
his reproach. Before the eyes of all, who are help- 
less to save him, he goes down daily, and passes 
hence, a hopeless failure and wreck of a man, to 
an ignominious grave. Aside from, and in addi- 
tion to, this typical instance there are all degrees 
of alcoholism and occasional drunkenness, with 
their varying concomitants of shame and evil. The 
blanched bones from a million graves rise up and 
cry out to the living, Beware the drunkard's drink! 
Secondly — This human wreckage, which no 
man can number or find out, has all come from 
moderate and supposedly harmless drinking. The 
custom of society which says that the moderate use 
of liquor is permissible, is responsible for it. From 
moderation men have ever gone over to excess, in 
spite of self-assurance that they would not, and 
determination that they should not. In spite of all 
preaching and moralizing that men exercise self- 
control and remain within the bounds of modera- 



282 A Century of Drink Reform. 

tion, they have ever been unable presently to ex- 
ercise such self-control, and have ever exceeded 
such prescribed bounds. To have totally renounced 
the cup in the beginning would alone have saved 
them. 

Thirdly — The strong have a duty toward the 
weak. If the safety and salvation of the latter 
lies only in entire abstinence, it is the duty of the 
former to encourage these, by their own example, 
to practice such abstinence. No man lives to him- 
self, and no man dies to himself. No man may 
put an occasion of stumbling in his brother's way. 
Nay, he must help him. If my drinking liquor 
causes my brother, who follows my example, to be 
made weak and to fall, I will quit drinking for his 
sake. This is according to the highest code of 
ethics that the world has received, and my con- 
science approves that it is right. My conduct in 
this particular becomes from now on a matter of 
principle. Not to do so, in the face of such rea- 
soning, would be unprincipled. 

The moderate drinker walks before all the 
world in dangerous places, which when others try 
to do, with less steady nerve and sure balance, they 



Gkou^d of Conflict. 283 

fall. His influence as far as the example he sets, 
therefore, is worse than that of the drunkard. No 
one cares to imitate the miserable wretch who falls 
reeling in the gutter. The sight of him acts rather 
as a deterrent to the use of any liquor. But when 
your leading citizen, who is respected by all, is 
seen to take his daily drink, every mother's boy 
will reason that what that man does can not be 
wrong for him to do ; and some mother will know 
sorrow. 

Did the beverage use of liquor serve any neces- 
sary and indispensable purpose in our daily econ- 
omy, the case would be different, and the ethics 
of moderation might rest upon a more valid foun- 
dation. But drinking is not indispensable ; is not 
necessary at all. It is not necessary to make men 
healthy and strong. The athlete and prize-fighter 
discard liquor when they go into training, and 
men and women everywhere enjoy good health 
without it. Liquor is not necessary to promote 
longevity. If any corroboration were needed in 
addition to our common observation, the actuaries' 
tables of our life insurance companies are conclu- 
sive on this point. Liquor is not necessary, again, 



284 A Century of Drink Reform. 

to make the brain clearer or the hand steadier. In 
our large industrial and commercial establishments 
preference is given, other things being equal, to 
those who do not use liquor ; and in not a few in- 
dustries, such as railroading and the like, where 
the largest risks and gravest responsibilities are 
involved, it is becoming increasingly the practice 
to employ no man whatever who uses liquor in 
any form. Lastly, liquor is not indispensable to 
the promotion of those interests in life which 
stand out above all as chiefest, namely, the per- 
sonal and domestic virtues — chastity, honor, rev- 
erence, love. 

These things need no more than the stating. 
Many of them are so obvious, and all of them are 
established upon such evidence, that there can be 
scarcely any one who would presume to enter a 
denial. As a matter of fact, the average man who 
uses liquor will not pretend that he does so for any 
of these reasons. His excuse, if he takes the 
trouble to offer one, is that it does n't hurt any- 
body ; it does n't hurt him. But no man can look 
upon the ruin wrought among men by strong drink, 
and reflect that such catastrophe would have been 
averted, and would again be averted from a sure 



Ground of Conflict. 285 

recurrence, except only for the drinking custom of 
society, — no man, we say, can understand 'this and 
continue to raise the cup to his lips, for the mere 
pleasure, and escape guilt. Some mightier po- 
tency for good will have to be established for our 
drinking custom, other than the plea that it does 
no one any harm, before, in view of the appalling 
evils that flow therefrom, it can be longer justified. 
Fourthly — Man has duties toward himself. 
This, placed last here, should perhaps come first. 
Self-preservation is nature's first law. And self- 
preservation means not the saving of the body 
merely, but the saving of the real self — the man. 
!N"o prayer is more oft repeated by human lips 
than this, Lead us not into temptation! Which 
means at the very least, if it means anything 
whatever, that man is not to walk into temptation 
with open eyes, just for pleasure. To defy dan- 
ger and take serious risks when some prize of love 
or humanity is to be won, this is the act of a hero. 
But to risk both body and soul recklessly, when 
nothing is sought to be gained and everything may 
be lost, is nothing less than foolhardy, which is 
not merely wrong, but may be wicked. 



286 A Century of Drink Eeform. 

Now, it lias just been said that the strong have 
a duty toward the weak. But with reference to 
the use of intoxicating liquor, in the power to re- 
sist its evils, who are the weak, and who the 
strong % How is this to be determined, and when ? 
In the beginning were they not all strong, as they 
thought, and was there one who had not unques- 
tioned confidence that he would never .be brought 
under the power of strong drink ? Yes, some there 
will be who will succumb, each man knew, but he 
would never be one of them. This was the assur- 
ance, not of a few, but of every single man. The 
final roll-call revealed that many had succumbed. 

What principle, now, shall the oncoming gen- 
eration adopt for its guidance, from among whom 
strong drink is to reap its next harvest of death ? 
Can it be told from the appearance, or size, or age, 
or birth, or nationality, or intelligence, or wealth, 
or any other outward circumstance or condition of 
the individual who are to be its outcasts through 
drink ? Absolutely no. Experience alone can de- 
termine that, and then only when it is too late. 
Every man who drinks liquor takes chances for 
evil. Whether these are small or great, he has no 



Ground of Conflict. 287 

means of knowing beforehand. If he can not re- 
sist the enslaving power of liquor, he will not be- 
come aware or convinced of it until his own expe- 
rience has brought him into such enslaved condi- 
tion ; and then, like those who go in at the gate of 
the scarlet woman, he will never return. Even 
those who have for years tasted of the intoxicating 
cup without apparent harm, can not say that they 
may not yet be brought under its power. 

Thus, while a kindly and unselfish regard for 
his fellow-beings should lead a man, for the sake 
of those who are weak and are sure to err through 
drink, to renounce the cup, a sober regard for 
human worth and a decent respect to his Maker 
should lead him to take care of his own life. No 
man may climb to the pinnacle of the temple and 
cast himself down. 

Up to this point we have accepted the common 
distinction between drinkers as "moderate," and 
"intemperate." We have assumed the contention 
of the former to be valid ; namely, that while mod- 
erate drinking may not do any particular good, 
neither does it do any particular harm. We have 
pointed out, upon the basis of this very contention, 



288 A Century of Drink Reform. 

that instead of making the moderate indulgence in 
liquor permissible, the right rule of conduct still 
condemns it. Man should abstain entirely, in the 
first place, as a right example to the weak; and 
for his sake, secondly, in removing himself from a 
temptation which he has no right to assume that 
he has exceptional power to resist; it has ruined 
so many. But there is a third consideration which 
makes the common beverage use of liquor, even in 
so-called moderation, indefensible. It lies in the 
nature and effects of moderate drinking itself. 
This shall be our final inquiry upon our present 
theme. 

As used in common speech, what do we really 
mean by moderate drinking ? And is such drink- 
ing harmless? While the term is not very accu- 
rately defined, we may say that a "moderate" 
drinker is usually thought of as a person who has 
not been brought into visible bondage to liquor. 
He drinks regularly, or on occasion, but he has 
not formed what men distinguish as the drink 
habit. Although he does not do so, yet it is said 
that he could let liquor entirely alone, if he wanted. 
He is not known as a man who gets drunk. To 



Grouxd of Conflict. 289 

the common eye he displays none of the physical 
symptoms that are clearly attendant upon typical 
cases of alcoholism. This, in a word, by inclusion 
and exclusion, gives us a rough composite which 
men would recognize as that of the moderate 
drinker. 

2s"ow, is evil— both moral and physical — all on 
the side of that which is excluded by this defini- 
tion of the moderate drinker ? May not the con- 
tinual introduction of alcoholic liquors into the 
human system exercise a disturbing influence on 
the finer, subtler functions of body and brain, and 
effect slow degenerative changes in tissue, which 
the average man is not likely or able to discern? 
Do not men die daily, as a matter of fact, from g 
alcoholism of the heart, of the kidneys, or of the 
liver, under different names, without the world, 
or they themselves even, ever knowing it, — men 
against whom the suspicion was never raised that 
they drank other than moderately? Who knows 
in how many cases of mental and bodily disease 
alcohol may not form, if not the immediate or 
direct cause, at least a predisposing or contribut- 
ing cause ? Or how many years may not have been 
19 



290 A Czxtuey or Dbixs Rzpobm. 

cut off from a man's life because of alcohol; or to 
what extent the physical weaknesses and peculiar- 
ities of any of us, our mental and moral incapaci- 
ties, may not have been determined by the drink- 
ing habits of our progenitors. And aside from the 
physical changes that may be wrought by the long 
and constant use of strong drink, are there not 
some very plain moral effects visible immediately 
upon indulgence in the cup by those who would 
resent the imputation that they were drinking 
ccneT :han ::iodera;e> \ The loosening of the 
tongue, and the bonds of self-restraint generally; 
the racy story, the questionable jest, the liberties 
of speech and of conduct — are these to be excused, 
if not exactly as exemplary, yet as harmless ? The 
German is often cited as a model instance of mod- 
erate drinking. And what effect has such drink- 
ing had upon this people ? Is it not a fact of ob- 
servation by thoughtful men that the beer drink- 
ing of Germany has stifled the idealism and the 
finer feeling of its people, and has produced, espe- 
cially among the academic youth of the nation, as 
seen in its beer jokes, its beer literature, and its 
beer conversation, an almost incredible vulgarity? 



Ground of Conflict. 291 

Do not some of the foremost medical men in Ger- 
many to-day declare this to be a fact ? And did we 
not read just in yesterday's papers of a masterful 
address on "Alcohol and Art/' delivered by Pro- 
fessor Behrens, Director of the School of Arts and 
Crafts at Dusseldorf, before the ninth Interna- 
tional Anti-Alcoholic Congress in session at 
Bremen, in the presence of fourteen hundred dele- 
gates from fifteen nations, how the drinking habit 
is dulling that spiritual aspiration and finer per- 
ception in men so necessary to the greatest achieve- 
ments in art ? Is not conduct also one of the fine 
arts, nay, the highest among them ; and does it re- 
quire, for its highest achievements, soul qualities 
less spiritual and less refined than to carve a statue 
or paint a picture ? Is it a matter of small con- 
cern that the best in life should thus be quenched 
and cut off by a public habit of self-indulgence that 
finds its stronghold in custom, and dares even to 
claim the sanction of religion % 

All this, it must be remembered, comes within 
the pale of moderate, every-day drinking, and is 
not usually even mentioned in the indictment 
against society's drinking customs. Yet the pres- 



292 A Century of Drink Reform. 

ent writer does not hesitate unreservedly to con- 
fess that it was his observation, in boyhood days, 
of these very effects of moderate drinking in a 
German speaking community — the relaxed man- 
ners in social drinking, of a people otherwise and 
naturally decent — that first moved him to disgust, 
and led subsequently to determined convictions 
upon this entire question. 

Nothing has been said thus far of the scientific 
phase of the alcohol question. We have purposely 
refrained from so doing. 'No great moral reform, 
in the first place, ever comes through the labora- 
tory. It must come through the conscience, by 
such facts and reasoning as lie within the scope of 
common sense and the common powers of under- 
standing. If the people believe not Moses and the 
prophets, neither will they believe though one rose 
from the dead. Again, Satan himself can quote 
authority, which serves only to confuse or deceive, 
unless one can read with discrimination. Thus, 
for instance, when Professor W. O. Atwater, of 
Middletown, Connecticut, conducted some experi- 
ments a few years ago upon a university janitor, 
whom he had confined in a specially constructed 



Ground of Conflict. 293 

metal chamber, which he called a "respiratory 
calorimeter/' and fed partly on alcohol, — when 
the professor announced that he found the alcohol 
to have been oxidized in the system, and to have 
served some uses as fuel, though it did not make 
new tissue or repair the machine, all the drinking 
world — men who care more to bolster up a habit 
than to know the truth — shouted for Atwater. As 
though the careful conclusion that a given quantity 
of alcohol can, under certain conditions, be oxi- 
dized in a healthy human body were a Come on 
boys! for everybody to step up and take a drink. 
It would seem that if it requires such painstaking, 
careful experimentation by an expert to determine 
the value of alcohol for the human system, it 
should require an equally careful prescription by 
an expert — the physician — to determine under 
what conditions, and in what quantities, alcohol 
should be administered in any given case. 

These experiments of Professor Atwater, it 
may be mentioned, were made under the auspices 
of the Committee of Fifty, a self -constituted body, 
since 1893, for the impartial study of the liquor 
question. The gentlemen comprising this body 



294 A Centttry of Deixk Reform:. 

hold very conservative views, for the most part, 
in the matter of temperance. 

On this subject of the attitude of medical 
science toward alcoholic liquors we will quote but 
a single authority. We deem this sufficient, first, 
because of the pre-eminence of the person among 
the recent men of medicine in America ; and sec- 
ondly, because his statement is safely conservative, 
representing a position from which the world will 
probably never again move backward. The testi- 
mony is that of the late Dr. William Pepper, Pro- 
vost of the University of Pennsylvania, author of 
the great work on medical practice, who says, as 
quoted by Senator Henry W. Blair in his book, 
"The Temperance Movement :" 

"Commonly one hears the question put in this 
form : Is alcohol a food or a poison ? It is neither 
the one nor the other. It is not a food in the com- 
mon and correct acceptation of the term, though 
it has points of resemblance with foods. It is not 
strictly speaking a poison, though it often produces 
highly-poisonous effects. It is to be regarded as a 
medicine or a drug, and belongs to the same class 
with opium, Indian hemp, tobacco, and some anal- 



Ground of Conflict. 295 

ogous substances. Nearly all healthy persons can 
with impunity take occasionally a small amount of 
dilute alcohol. With some individuals, however, 
even the smallest quantity disagrees and disorders 
digestion ; on the other hand, a very small propor- 
tion of individuals seem able to take large amounts 
regularly for many years without damage. But I 
do not doubt that this impunity is more apparent 
than real, and that nearly all such persons are 
slowly but surely injured by the habit. One of 
the worst features of the action of alcohol in a 
large number of young persons is that, though 
taken in small amount and even in the form of 
light wines or beer, its first agreeable effect is fol- 
lowed by a feeling of lassitude and depression, 
readily mistaken for debility, and suggesting a 
repetition of the stimulant. But these unpleasant 
feelings are the direct result of the presence in 
the blood and tissues of poisonous matters, coming 
from the imperfect digestion of the alcohol, or 
food with whose complete assimilation the dose of 
alcohol has interfered. Here evidently is a fruit- 
ful source of functional disorder; and still more 
is it a source of gradually-increasing use, ending 



296 A Centuky of Dbink Keform. 

in actual excess, with its inseparable physical and 
moral degradation. It is impossible to exclude 
from our consideration this enslaving tendency 
which separates alcohol so widely from all ordinary 
articles of diet, and relegates it to a special class 
of drugs. I am indeed satisfied that all persons 
in good health are better without alcohol in any 
form or in any amount, as a regular beverage. If 
this is true of dilute alcohol, by which I mean light 
wines or beer, or greatly-diluted spirit, it may be 
asserted without hesitation that all stronger forms 
of alcohol capable of causing positive local stimu- 
lation or irritation of the stomach, should be re- 
garded purely as drugs, and be used exclusively 
under medical advice. Their habitual use by 
healthy persons is highly injurious and involves 
the risk of developing serious disease. It is, how- 
ever, impossible to deny the great value of alcohol 
even in large amounts during critical stages of 
some acute diseases. And I can speak with confi- 
dence of the beneficial effects, in suitable cases as 
determined by a physician, of small amounts of 
dilute spirit, or of generous wine, taken as a stim- 
ulant by weak and elderly persons. While, how- 



Ground of Conflict. 297 

ever, we admit the therapeutic value of alcohol in 
these and other suitable cases, it is clear to me 
that every medical man should prescribe it with a 
distinct recognition in each individual case of 
the special danger attaching to its habitual use." 

If alcohol, then, is not properly a food for the 
body, but must be classed as a drug, or medicine, 
with opium and kindred substances, it would seem 
that there could be no such thing as a rational, 
"moderate" use — constantly, indiscriminately, and 
self -prescribed, by all classes, and on all occasions 
— of such drug or medicine. 

But if all this does not yet make clear this en- 
tire matter of moderation, we will add a final tes- 
timony in the form of an experiment. In order 
to determine accurately just what quantity of al- 
cohol is harmless and "moderate," and what quan- 
tity is injurious and therefore "intemperate," 
numerous thorough-going experiments have been 
made independently by men whose scientific au- 
thority is unquestioned, with the following results : 
Doses of 7-10-15 grams (one-fourth to one-half 
ounce) of alcohol, which corresponds to a glass of 
wine or a pint of German beer, are sufficient regu- 



298 A Century of Drink Reform. 

larly to paralyze, retard, or disturb all the central 
and centripetal brain functions. By delicate 
measurements it is found that the number of mis- 
takes in such exercises as typesetting, memoriz- 
ing, calculating, etc., is increased. Sensibility is 
blunted, and mental reaction is retarded. The sub- 
jective consequences of the effect are agreeable; 
one feels heat, cold, and pain less; one is not 
merely less accurate, but less scrupulous, less 
afraid. A very slight veil of illusion has spread 
over reality, which is the beginning of later intoxi- 
cation by larger doses. 

Such are the first effects of alcoholic liquor. 
This explains at once why men are tempted to 
drink; why the habit grows, and why drinking 
usually goes before immorality and crime. 

To say nothing of the advanced status of the 
total abstinence cause in this and other English- 
speaking lands, when we note the awakening of 
other nations to the import of this reform, and 
read that such men, for instance, as Forel, of 
Zurich ; von Bunge, of Basel ; Weigert, of Frank- 
fort ; Delbruck, of Bremen ; Moebbins, of Leipsic, 
and lastly, Kraepelin, of Heidelberg, who stands 



Ground op Conflict. 299 

at the head of authorities on diseases of the mind, 
and to whose clinic medical students from all 
lands resort, — when such men, we repeat, change 
their personal habits and prejudices of a lifetime, 
and renounce even the moderate use of beer and 
light wines ; and raising their voice and pen against 
the custom of a whole people, become pronounced 
leaders in a propagandism for complete abstinence, 
— the friend of sobriety and of humanity, who has 
labored long and hard in the cause, may well re- 
joice. It makes one feel that now is our redemp- 
tion nearer than when we first believed. 

2. The suppression, by State and nation, of 
the traffic in alcoholic liquors for beverage pur- 
poses. 

This is the other decisive issue that has been 
won in the long warfare against the drink custom 
of society. This is clearer, if anything, than the 
first. When we come to consider a public institu- 
tion like the traffic in intoxicating liquors, which 
fattens, not upon the ambitions and virtues of man- 
kind, but upon its vices; which pumps into the 
body politic — without surcease night nor day — 
disease, insanity, degeneracy, pauperism, lust. 



300 A Centttey or Deixk Ezfoem. 

crime, corruption, pain, and woe, — an institution, 
we repeat, which does this, and can produce no 
record of good — there is but one attitude that a 
State can consistently assume toward it, and that 
is its suppression. The right of a State to do this 
is no longer open to question ; nor its duty. What 
a man eats and drinks is his own concern prima- 
rily ; and any change which one may seek to effect 
in these habits of an individual must be left to 
reason and moral appeal. But what a man sets 
up business in, and keeps open house for, on our 
main thoroughfares, becomes public business, and ' 
may be suppressed in the interests of decency and 
good order. As far as lies within this sphere, 
what the people's welfare demands, the State not 
only may but must do. 

To say that the saloon exists only in response 
to a human demand, namely, the natural craving 
for liquor in man, which no legislation can take 
away, will hardly do. If this were true, indeed, 
that the saloon exists to wait upon, and take ad- 
vantage of, a human weakness, it would scarcely 
make this business out to be of a character that 
should receive the official approval of a State. In 



Ground of Conflict. 301 

such case the State should at the least withdraw 
from it its express permission and protection, and 
give the moral forces among its citizens a fair 
chance to cope with this appetite. But instead of 
saying that the saloon merely supplies a univer- 
sally existing appetite, it would be nearer the whole 
truth to say that the saloon first incites the appe- 
tite which it so cheerfully ministers to. Men learn 
to drink in the saloon. The open door, the screens, 
the light and attractions within, the free lunch and 
free drinks, these draw men in — are intended to 
draw them in. Did the saloon exist just to satisfy 
some inborn, irresistible appetite, there would be 
no need for such attractive and elaborate saloon 
furnishings. The man who goes in because he 
must have his drink cares nothing for plate mir- 
rors and paintings. He will get to the bar if the 
floor is n't paved with silver dollars. Indeed he 
will pass through dark and narrow passageways, 
so we are assured, and up a rickety flight of stairs 
perhaps, and before a hole in the wall swallow his 
dram without so much as stopping to see how ar- 
tistic the surroundings may be. Or he will take 
it — yes, will be delighted with the chance thus to 



302 A Century of Drixk Reform. 

get it — from the man who brings it around in his 
bootleg, or in a hollow cane, or from the lady who 
carries it, quite conveniently, in a metallic bustle. 
When such simple means and small outlay of cap- 
ital suffice to satisfy a want that our Creator has 
given us, it would show but small business sagacity 
to rent corner blocks and put in them paintings 
and plate glass, and wine stalls, and family en- 
trances, and electric fans, and salted victuals, and 
music, and games, and peeping, and other devices, 
— poor calculation, we say, thus to squander money 
if people will drink anyway. A wise man would 
put his new silver dollars in the bank instead of in 
the saloon floor. 

Xo; the public saloon and saloon system is a 
vast organized inciter of human appetite. It is 
an omnipresent, publicly sanctioned temptation to 
evil. It exists not because man, by nature, must 
drink, but because, by proper incentives, man can 
be made to drink, and there is money in selling 
it to him. The craving of large numbers of people 
for alcoholic liquor is no more to be charged to the 
Creator than is the craving of certain people for 
opium, or of many for tobacco, or the irresistible 



Ground of Conflict. 303 

tendency of others to utter themselves in copious 
profanity. These, and others like them, are 
strictly acquired habits, perverted and evil habits, 
acquired in association with companions of evil. 
These are among the offenses of which Holy Writ 
says, Woe unto them by whom they come! The 
curse of Almighty God is heavy upon the tempter 
to evil. And because the public traffic in strong 
drink is precisely such a tempter on a vast scale, 
provoking those very elements of evil in man which 
the agencies of religion and of civilization are con- 
stantly endeavoring to suppress and eradicate — 
and undoing in large measure their work, — the 
State must suppress it. The State must exercise 
the same authority by which it now permits and 
protects this business, to prohibit it. It must do it. 
Indeed, this scarcely needs any lengthy argu- 
ment. People are pretty generally agreed that no 
saloon in a community is better than the best exist- 
ing saloon, and that if the liquor business could be 
effaced from the earth it would be a rich bless- 
ing to humanity. Men are coming to agree pretty 
well, too, that the saloon can never be removed and 
the traffic suppressed by means of coffee-houses, 



304 A Cextuhy of Deixk Reform. 

ice-cream stands, club and game rooms, reading- 
rooms, drinking fountains, mission rooms and 
tracts. As long as the saloon has permission to do 
business, it will make life hard for all of these 
self -constituted philanthropies : it will run them 
out eventually. The saloon must be removed by 
the same power which gave it existence — the State, 
namely; and through the same agency — the law, 
backed by a correct public sentiment. Then for 
coffee and ice-cream and reading-rooms ! Men 
are pretty well agreed, again, that to abolish pov- 
erty, or to equalize industrial conditions that pro- 
duce poverty, would not remove the saloon, or miti- 
gate its evils, on the plea that it is poverty which 
leads men to drink. If it were thinkable that a 
man who has no money will regularly go to the 
saloon and buy that which he has no money to buy, 
and can not get without money; if it were psycho- 
logically probable that a man who is poor and mis- 
erable will deliberately take to drink which makes 
him yet poorer and more miserable, — it is a very 
plain fact, whether or not men take to drink be- 
cause they are poor, that men are poor — and their 
families — because they first took to drink. With 



Ground of Conflict. 305 

the saloon doing business, itself one of the most 
constant and prolific sources of poverty, the task 
of abolishing poverty will be uphill work. Let the 
saloon be first removed, the impoverisher of the 
people, which robs men of their hard-earned money 
and gives them only rags and woe in return ; then 
the grocer, the house furnisher, and the savings 
bank will have their inning. 

'No; all this does not have to be seriously ar- 
gued before intelligent people. On all this men 
are sufficiently agreed. But what beyond this 
point ? Here men can not see as clearly. 

While we have been brought up squarely at 
the point of prohibition, still the fortunes of the 
prohibition policy have been so varied, and its suc- 
cess in many of the States where it has been tried 
apparently so doubtful, that many an honest man, 
who has no difficulty in discerning what is right in 
principle, begins to be perplexed. He begins to 
question whether what is right and good is also 
always expedient — that is, practicable. For which 
misgiving, in this instance, there seems to be no 
little ground. Towns and cities that have voted 
no-license constantly change back, after a short 
20 



306 A Century of Drink Reform. 

time, to the saloon ; and even while no-license is in 
operation there is more or less liquor sold. Who 
can be sure when the saloons are cleaned out that 
at the next election they will not be voted back? 
And is this not true of State prohibition as well ? 
Just about an even dozen States that have had 
prohibition in our own land, have repealed it — 
even Vermont recently, after fifty-one years of 
continuous complete prohibition, and New Hamp- 
shire, after forty-eight years of partial prohibition, 
early in the year of grace, 1903. Some States, 
like Massachusetts and Rhode Island, have not 
fewer than twice passed a prohibitory law, and as 
often repealed it ; while after all the hard struggle 
for prohibition during more than fifty years now, 
the prohibition policy is in force to-day only in 
three States — Maine, Kansas, and North Dakota, 
with forces constantly at work here for resubmis- 
sion and repeal. 

Now, the cause for such reversal of policy has 
not been that the people had, in each case, discov- 
ered some new blessing in the saloon, or that they 
had found a better method of stopping its ravages ; 
or that they themselves had come to love sobriety 



Gboustd of Conflict. 307 

and quiet less, — but rather, generally speaking, 
that they had not been able to make prohibition 
work well. "Very hard to enforce/' its friends 
reluctantly conceded ; while the enemy carried the 
day with the slogan that prohibition does n't pro- 
hibit; that as much liquor is sold as before, and 
the further consideration — always added — that 
the people get no revenue. From all this the com- 
mon-sense generalization is made that it is never 
wise to enact laws in advance of what public sen- 
timent will sustain. 

These observations are far enough removed 
from the beggarly elements of the reform to de- 
serve respectful and thorough consideration. We 
have here come to a point where it will require 
clear and penetrating vision, or we shall lose our 
way. 

It is true, then, that the real reason why pro- 
hibitory laws have not been sustained, and the 
drink question, which half a century ago seemed 
surely to be approaching a final settlement, is to- 
day as far as, or farther, from a solution than 
ever, — is the real reason for this that the temper- 
ance sentiment of the country has at no time been 



308 A Century of Drink Reform. 

sufficiently advanced ? Shall we say that this sen- 
timent has not only not grown, but that the con- 
tinued repeal of prohibitory laws has been evidence 
of its constant recession; and that to-day, when 
there are fewer State prohibition laws in force in 
our land than for fifty years, there is less pro- 
nounced and widespread sentiment against the 
saloon than ever ? Is the real difficulty with the 
public sentiment ? When, after an agitation which 
for intensity, duration, and universality knows no 
parallel in the history of any other similar reform ; 
when the pen, mightier than the sword, is on every 
hand enlisted against the Philistine of strong drink, 
and every school and church-bell peals out its death 
knell; when from the innumerable undisturbed 
public pursuits the liquor business alone is singled 
out and humiliated with every kind and manner 
of legal restraint, of business exclusion, and of 
social ostracism, and aside from the bald fact that 
it yields revenue, finds not a single conspicuous 
public defender ; when in spite of the poor enforce- 
ment and general handicap hitherto of prohibitory 
laws ; at the risk of boycott in business, at the risk 
of personal danger, and in the face of the damn- 



Ground of Conflict. 309 

ing temptation of the "revenue" and "trade" ar- 
guments urged for the liquor business, — when in 
the face of these things individuals and communi- 
ties have again and again voted to sustain the no- 
license policy, and not a State that has not its 
considerable area under prohibition — in some in- 
stances from two-thirds to three-fourths of its en- 
tire area — shall it be seriously said, and with re- 
flection, that the reason why the long struggle 
against the open, State-sanctioned traffic in liquor 
is not already clearly within sight of its goal, is 
because not enough sentiment has yet been created 
on this question? How much sentiment does it 
require in a democracy to make the will of the peo- 
ple effective in law ? 

Or to come closer to the point still. Is it true 
in those States, specifically, which have enacted a 
prohibitory law by the deliberate choice of their 
voting citizens, that public sentiment in those 
States does not sustain the enforcement of that 
law ? What did the people pass the law for ? The 
people of Iowa, for instance, on June 27, 1882, 
voted for constitutional prohibition by a majority 
of 29,759—155,436 voting for, and 125,677 



310 A Century of Dbotk Refokm:. 

against. Ordinarily such majority in such vote 
would be quite sufficient to inaugurate and carry 
out a change in governmental policy. Yet there 
are not wanting those who loudly asserted that 
prohibition in Iowa was a failure from the begin- 
ning; and that it ceased we know. Was not pro- 
hibition, as a matter of record, amply justified by 
its fruits, taking the State over ? If prohibition 
really was a failure, wherein was it that it failed ? 
Again, the people of the State of Rhode Island, 
on April 7, 1886, voted for constitutional prohibi- 
tion by a more than three-fifths majority vote, — 
15,113 voting for, and 9,230 against. Even if one 
were inclined to question the sufficiency of the 
Iowa majority, surely here we have a majority — 
nearly two to one — large enough thoroughly to 
carry out any policy. Yet the law was not en- 
forced, and after three years, the people in dis- 
gust and despair repealed prohibition by a vote of 
nearly three to one. The people will not sustain 
prohibition, was said. If prohibition in Ehode 
Island was a failure, why was it a failure ? Must 
public sentiment be stronger — poll more votes yet ? 
In what way must it be stronger ? 



Grouzstd of Conflict. 311 

Once more, the people of the State of Maine, 
at the fall State election in September, 1884, voted 
for constitutional prohibition by a majority of 
three to one — 70,783 voting for, and 23,811 
against. There can be no disputing that such a 
vote shows a very strong sentiment in favor of pro- 
hibition. And when we reflect that this vote was 
that of the male population only ; that had woman, 
who also has convictions on this subject, been per- 
mitted to express these convictions in votes, and 
those under twenty-one just fresh from school — 
with these added considerations, we can not but 
say that the backing of prohibition in Maine, in 
the popular electorate and in the moral sentiment 
of the entire people, is — or was — literally over- 
whelming. Yet there are those who have faith to 
betieve that prohibition is not succeeding in Maine, 
and never has succeeded. Public sentiment does 
not sustain prohibitory laws, is proclaimed abroad. 
You can get liquor anywhere, some say. Others 
enter an emphatic denial, and affirm that prohi- 
bition is a success. So how shall we tell? We 
would naturally expect it to be a complete suc- 
cess, with such a vote back of it. And if it is 2 the 



312 A Century of Drink Reform. 

matter becomes very simple ; let every State in the 
Union speedily adopt prohibition. But if it is 
not a complete success ; if liquor is sold there gen- 
erally and in considerable quantities, contrary to 
law, we want to know why liquor is sold there. 
There is some obscure difficulty here, and there is 
too much at stake to remain indifferent in this 
matter, or to be satisfied with generalities. 

We propose to probe deeply and unflinchingly 
until we have located the precise seat of the trouble. 
We want to make it very plain that the difficulty 
lies not with the sentiment of the people, but some- 
where else; and we want to know by what right 
any man who enjoys the blessings of free popular 
government, and professes to believe in democratic 
institutions where the people themselves, by ma- 
jorities, exercise the right of rule, — may dare even 
to intimate that a clear majority of two to one, or 
of three to one, on any measure of State is not yet 
large enough to warrant its enactment, or to insure 
its reasonable enforcement. 



D. ADJUDICATION. 

318 



(I.) 

CHAPTER X. 

The Alleged Failures of Prohibition. 

Prohibition has not been a failure; neither 
has it been an unqualified success. It has worked 
well enough to convince men that it is not only 
right, but practicable ; that it is the only sufficient 
and final remedy for the drink evil. To furnish 
proof of this is but to give what everybody knows, 
or has no excuse for not knowing. On the other 
hand, the prohibition policy has hobbled plainly 
and long enough at once to indicate the presence of 
a difficulty, and to enable us to locate it. That 
this difficulty lies elsewhere than in a lack of pub- 
lic sentiment among the people on this question, 
began to grow apparent at the close of the last 
chapter. 

The hindrance to a complete success of prohi- 
bition hitherto has been twofold. It has to do 
with the area, on the one hand, to which prohibi- 
tion has been applied; and to the method on the 
315 



316 A Century of Drink Beeorm. 

other hand, by which it has been applied. These 
we will discuss in turn. 

First — Area. 

A no-license policy is not likely to be com- 
pletely or permanently successful in any town 
when all the surrounding towns sell liquor freely. 
Such a law, from start to finish, suffers a heavy 
handicap. It is hard to get such law passed, in 
the first place. IsTot that a sufficient number of 
citizens may not believe in it, or would not like 
to see liquor banished from their midst, but be- 
cause they see in advance how the law will be ham- 
pered in its operation. They are aware how easy 
it will be to ship in liquor, or bring it by wagon 
at night from the next town ; and they do not like 
the thought of the general law-evading and law- 
breaking that is almost sure to follow. They are 
aware, too, that to antagonize the saloon right in 
their midst, where a man has his home and his 
business, is no holiday matter. A United States 
marshal can go to a town and close up, and spare 
not; but for a home citizen to try to do this is 
neither pleasant nor wholly safe always. Good 
citizens prefer generally to live in peace, even to 



Alleged Failures of Prohibition. 317 

suffering annoyance and wrong. Then, too, the 
citizen is influenced by trade and tax considera- 
tions. It is predicted that if the saloons are closed 
in this town trade will go to adjoining towns; and 
this prospect again is not pleasing. And getting 
no revenue, local taxes will be much higher, it is 
added. These considerations, any or all, will in- 
fluence a considerable number to cast their ballot 
against no-license, while really believing in it, and 
with no love for the liquor business. This fact 
must be borne in mind when we consider the ex- 
tent of local option, or no-license, territory 
throughout the country, — that large as that area 
is — in a few States all but entire— the aggregate 
of local votes, to say nothing of woman's complete 
exclusion, does not in fact represent the full 
strength of the sentiment against the liquor trade. 
The local option method of dealing with the 
drink evil works against heavy odds. No com- 
munity should be expected to settle single-handed 
a question that has such larger than local bear- 
ings. As well try to protect a community against 
pillage and robbery when robbers' dens infest the 
woods on all sides just across the town line, as to 



318 A Cextuey of Dbexk Refobm. 

keep liquor out of a town when all around they are 
allowed to sell it. It might be done possibly, but 
the citizen would begin to question whether it was 
worth the cost. He would probably conclude to 
bar the door and take his chances. 

What we have said here of local option applies 
also in a measure to State prohibition, which is 
but a kind of local option on a larger scale. Pro- 
hibition probably never has had a fairer trial than 
in Iowa under Governor William Larrabee, from 
1SS5 to 1889. The State administration made an 
earnest effort to enforce the law, yet in the border 
counties and in the larger interior cities it was 
more or less openly violated. All the adjoining 
States made lawful, and were deriving revenue 
from, that which Iowa was trying to suppress. 
Xot only did the railway communications and the 
imaginary State border lines offer every facility 
for smuggling in the contraband article, but when 
the Chicago and Xorthwestern Railway, for in- 
stance, refused to cany open consignments of 
liquor into the State, it was sued, and — what is 
worse, — beaten. The United States Supreme 
Court, which handed down the final ruling, do- 



Alleged Failures of Prohibition. 319 

clared that the act of carrying merchandise from 
one State into another did not come within the 
province of State law, but belonged to Federal au- 
thority alone, in its control of interstate com- 
merce; and that a railroad, as a common carrier, 
has no right to discriminate against any com- 
modity which constitutes a proper article of com- 
merce. This decision, rendered in 1888, was fol- 
lowed by another decision, in 1890, known as the 
"original package" decision, in which the Supreme 
Court held that liquor thus shipped into prohibi- 
tion territory could not be seized by the local au- 
thorities as long as it remained in the original 
package, as shipped; and that in such packages it 
might be sold. The widespread protest which this 
decision called forth, led Congress to enact some 
remedial, though insufficient, legislation. The 
man who now sells liquor in prohibition territory 
does so at his own risk ; but the interstate law still 
protects the shipment of liquor until actually in 
the hands of the consignee. In other words, the 
thief may come within the town limits — under 
Federal protection ; let the constable have a care 
that he does n't steal ! 



320 A Centuby of Drink Eefoem. 

£To; the same power that controls interstate 
commerce must control the liquor traffic. One 
would scarcely expect that the prohibition of the 
sale of any article within its own limits, by a State 
or town, can be made thoroughly effectual except 
the importation, the actual bringing in of that ar- 
ticle, also, can be made punishable. You say Con- 
gress should at once enact a law prohibiting such 
importation. This Congress certainly should do. 
A bill to this effect was introduced in the Fifty- 
seventh Congress, but the liquor power showed its 
hand at the seat of legislation, and the bill was 
killed. A similar measure, the Hepburn-Dolliver 
bill, was brought before the Fifty-eighth Congress, 
just adjourned. This measure had a strong in- 
dorsement of public sentiment, and committee 
hearings were held; but coming just on the eve 
of a national political canvass, nothing more was 
heard of it. 

When our Government declares that the 
liquor question belongs to the States for such 
settlement as they may severally choose, it should 
respect them in their full right of such settlement. 
When a stronger lets a weaker wage combat with 



Alleged Failures of Prohibition. 321 

the destroyer single-handed, he should at least give 
the weaker a fair field. Such law, making the 
carrying of liquor into prohibition territory pun- 
ishable, would greatly help the individual States 
in their uneven contest. It would have made it 
impossible for the brewers of Dubuque or Daven- 
port, for instance, under the protection of the Fed- 
eral Government, to ship their liquor across the 
river into Illinois (this being interstate com- 
merce), and immediately ship it back (this being 
interstate commerce again) into any part of the 
State whence it came. 

However, such a law, considerably though it 
would strengthen the hands of the State, is not yet 
sufficient. The executive machinery of Federal 
authority is alone adequate properly to enforce a 
general prohibitory law. Do not the Federal 
liquor permits taken out everywhere in prohibi- 
tion territory bear witness to this fact ? What do 
they mean if not this : the liquor-seller is willing 
to take his chances with the prohibitory law of the 
State as enforced in his locality, but he will take 
no such chances with the Federal Government? 
He will sell — or try to sell — without a State li- 
21 



322 A Century of Drink Reform. 

cense, but he will not dare to sell without a Fed- 
eral permit. If the Government should experience 
a change of heart, therefore, and use the same vig- 
orous means entirely to suppress liquor-selling 
which it now employs to collect revenue from it, 
we should probably hear of fewer repeals of prohi- 
bition on the ground that it had failed to prohibit. 

If a State is able to maintain its policy of pro- 
hibition against such odds, with every neighboring 
State, may be, against her ; with the Federal Gov- 
ernment against her; with the wealth and the 
power of the liquor interests throughout the land 
incessantly at work to break down the law, — ship- 
ping in liquor free, if necessary, as was openly 
charged in Iowa, to those who will agree to handle 
it, and even giving it away to those who will drink, 
— to bring the law into discredit, and to be able to 
say before the world that prohibition does n't pro- 
hibit, and thus bring about its repeal: — if a law, 
under such conditions, is not severely and even 
fatally crippled, but can show much good, what 
may we not expect of it under more favorable con- 
ditions ! 

But aside from the question of practicability 



Alleged Failures of Prohibition. 323 

there remains the question of right. If liquor-sell- 
ing is ruinous and wrong in Kansas, is it benefi- 
cent and right in Nebraska or Illinois ? Are the 
effects of strong drink different on the opposite 
sides of an imaginary geographical line? Does 
liquor start men on the road to prosperity and 
heaven in one State, and send them to the peniten- 
tiary and the madhouse in the other ? If not, — if 
liquor works everywhere essentially the same 
works, and if- a town has an unquestioned right 
completely to suppress the liquor business in its 
midst, on the ground that it is evil, have the people 
of the next town an equally unquestioned right to 
permit this same business in their midst, and to 
throw around it the protection of law ? The right 
to suppress has been amply confirmed, and is now 
unquestioned ; but how about the right to permit ? 
You say that is a matter for each community to 
decide. 'No ; no. If it were a matter of building 
a bridge, or paving a street, or operating a light 
and power plant, or any other business that has a 
purely local and business character, it would rest 
properly with the citizens of the community to de- 
cide. But not so with far-reaching questions of 



324 A Century oe Drink Keeorm. 

morals. ' !NTo individual or community has any 
option, for instance, on the Decalogue. If one 
should ask you, Is it right to steal (provided you 
are not caught) ? you would scarcely answer — pre- 
tending that you were liberal and practical, This 
depends upon the community you are in. Or if 
you saw a man throwing a carcass into the city's 
water supply, would it change the character of the 
act to be told that the people did not relish plain 
water, and that the doctors and undertakers had 
agreed that he might do this thing? Or if in a 
certain place you saw an excited multitude sear- 
ing a naked body with a hot iron and strangling its 
life with a rope, would you, on seeing that the vic- 
tim had swarthy features, and that this occurrence 
was taking place south of a certain degree of lati- 
tude, withhold your judgment and acknowledge 
that all such acts must be judged according to the 
sentiment prevailing in each separate community % 
~No; if the local authorities were indifferent, or 
sanctioned it, you would appeal to the State to 
overrule local sentiment; such things must not be 
known within a State. If the State were indif- 
ferent, you would appeal to the nation to overrule 



Alleged Failures of Prohibition. 325 

the sentiment of the State; such things must not 
receive sanction within a nation. And if the na- 
tion refused to Hear, you would raise your voice in 
the ears of the people in appeal to a higher law 
than statute or constitution — as men before you 
have done, — and declare that this thing is an in- 
iquity before God, and must cease ; compelling the 
world to hear. 

If therefore theft and murder are wrong, not 
as localities may decide, but anywhere — every- 
where, what shall we say of a public traffic in an 
article that robs men, first of their purse — trash; 
then steals away their brains, filches from them 
their good name, and wrests from them their hope 
of heaven ? Is the right or wrong of this a mere 
matter of locality ? Shall we say that it is crime 
for a man, anywhere within the broad domain of 
humanity, to defile the water supply of a people, 
which produces fever and may result in death, and 
say of a man who supplies people with a drink 
that poisons the fountains of virtue, that turns bit- 
ter the milk of human kindness, and lays men also 
in their graves with a worse than physical death ; 
shall we say that it is all right for a man to do this 



326 A Cextuey of Dei^k Befokm. 

provided the community said he might (for 
money), and the State said it didn't care what 
the towns did ? 

Or perhaps the fact that a man is willing to 
take his chances with liquor alters the case, — that 
he knows about it and agrees to it. Perhaps it is 
all right for a man to put the bottle to his neigh- 
bor's lips, if the latter wants it and finds it agree- 
able, — is it ? Perhaps the circumstance that a man 
is willing — or a woman — makes it all right for 
another to debauch him — or her ; does it ? 

The attitude of a large portion of the Amer- 
ican people — the position of the Government it- 
self — on the liquor question is precisely the atti- 
tude to which Stephen A. Douglas wished to com- 
mit this nation on the question of I^egro slavery, 
when he brought forward his doctrine of squatter 
sovereignty, which cost his party, and almost the 
nation, its life. Let every community decide for 
itself ; he did not care "whether it was voted up or 
voted down in the Territories." To this Lincoln 
replied : "Any man can say that who does not see 
anything wrong in slavery, but no man can logic- 
ally say that who does see a wrong in it ; because 



Alleged Failures of Prohibition. 327 

no man can logically say he does n't care whether 
a wrong is voted up or voted down. He may say 
he does n't care whether an indifferent thing is 
voted up or voted down, but he mast logically have 
a choice between a right thing and a wrong thing. 
He contends that whatever community wants 
slaves has a right to have them. So they have, if 
it is not wrong. But if it is wrong, he can not say 
people have a right to do wrong." 

With respect to the morals of the liquor traffic 
our several governmental bodies in America prac- 
tice a policy of evasion, from first to last. The 
Federal Government says, Let each State decide 
as it sees fit; this question belongs to the police 
power of the States. The State, in turn, when 
questioned, replies, Let each community decide 
for itself ; our population is so diverse. Towns are 
granted, consequently, the privilege of "local op- 
tion." Going, again, to the town or city, we ask, 
What do you purpose to do with this question of 
allowing men to engage in the public drink traffic 
in your midst ? We get essentially the same reply, 
Let the different wards decide what they want ; or, 
It shall rest with the property owners on both sides 



328 A Cebttuby of Dbistk Keeobm. 

of the street in the block where the drink shop is 
to be opened. 

But why stop at this point ? No, we must not 
stop after getting so far. What right has the resi- 
dent on one side of a street to express an opinion 
to the resident on the opposite side as to what he 
should, or should not, have or do on that other side 
— may not the sentiment on this question be differ- 
ent on the two sides ? Why not leave the question 
with those who live on the same side of the street, 
in the same block? This would come nearer the 
ideal of local autonomy. A broad street forms a 
more real geographical division between people, 
for instance, than an imaginary line running be- 
tween States or counties or towns. We have in 
fact known a town line to nm through the middle 
of a building, part in one township, part in an- 
other. 

But we must go a step farther. What justice 
or practical wisdom is there in lumping all the 
families in a long row of houses, several families 
perhaps in one house, strangers to one another, 
with different tastes, habits, views, — what justice 
to force a uniform policy upon all of these ? No 



Alleged Failures of Peohibitiojst. 329 

justice, when you come to think of it. Why not 
then at once avow to rest the question where this 
principle logically leads us, where sentiment is 
most homogeneous, where son will swear by his 
father, and where wife and husband, under stress 
of outward interference at least, will be of one 
mind — namely, the family? ^NTo special sanctity 
attaches to a State or town line, city ward, or brick 
block; but civilized peoples have ever accorded a 
peculiar sacredness to the family as an institution, 
and have ever sought to keep its autonomy intact 
and inviolate. 

But there is yet no peace. This principle still 
lacks its final application. "He that loveth father 
or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me," 
indicates an obedience and a unity higher than 
that of the family. Once assert the principle of 
"local option" in a matter of right and wrong, 
and that principle will know no peace until it rests 
localized in the individual conscience. Stop short 
of that — anywhere, and you deny the very princi- 
ple which you have affirmed. Who is the slayer 
of kings and rulers — anarchist, we call him — but 
he who has followed this principle to its logical 



330 A Century of Drink Reform. 

conclusion, and has had the courage to carry out 
his convictions in action ? All human government 
is coercion, he asserts, and wrong. K"o man can 
decide for another what is right. Each man's con- 
science is the tribunal to whose decrees he must 
give allegiance. And for his logic we condemn 
this man ; for his courage we execute him. 

Still he is wrong. His premises are false. 
While the conscience must be obeyed, and while 
government may not interfere with a man's purely 
personal beliefs and habits, yet the public acts of a 
man are a matter of concern to the entire people, 
and if these become subversive of public peace 
and good order, the people in their ruling capacity 
may restrain him from doing evil. Government 
thus properly becomes, as the Apostle Paul tells 
us, a terror only to evil doers. It becomes an in- 
strument, not of oppression, but of liberty. The 
author of the Declaration of Independence had an 
absolutely correct conception of the function of 
government when he wrote: "To secure these 
rights" — life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, 
etc. — "governments are instituted among men, de- 
riving their just powers from the consent of the 



Alleged Failures of Prohibition. 331 

governed." To this end the people, in the inter- 
ests of peace and order and public welfare, over- 
rule not only the "option" of individuals, but the 
"local option" of bands, sects, societies, of towns, 
cities, and States even. The people of Utah, for 
instance, believe religiously in Mornionisra, and 
are said in their heart to cherish polygamy ; Colo- 
rado believes in free silver, and Texas in free 
trade ; Louisiana late in the day operated a lottery, 
and South Carolina a little earlier practiced nulli- 
fication. Did we — or do we — pay deference to 
the principle of autonomy and self-government, or 
to the consideration that a uniform policy would 
be either not right or not expedient ? Xo — yes, to 
the autonomy and sovereignty of the people as a 
nation, that largest and final unit of action in all 
matters pertaining to the common weal. To one 
or the other of these tribunals all questions of 
morals must be ultimately referred: to the indi- 
vidual conscience — the personal unit, for all 
purely personal matters ; to the national conscience 
— the social unit, for all questions of far-reaching 
public concern. 

It is just as true of the public commerce in 



332 A Centuey of Deink Eefoem. 

strong drink as it was, or is, of any of these other 
questions — as it was of Negro slavery : this nation, 
on grounds either of expediency or of right, can 
not remain permanently half under prohibition, 
and half under license (permission). It will be 
either all the one or all the other. Either, event- 
ually, every prohibitory statute must be repealed, 
or else every legalized drink shop must go. There 
is no other alternative. 

Second — Method. 

The other great hindrance to the complete suc- 
cess of prohibition hitherto lies in the fact that 
the men who enacted prohibition forgot that no 
law will enforce itself; that whether or not a law 
shall prove effective will depend almost entirely 
upon the machinery and men that are back of it 
for its enforcement. Fairly to test any law, the 
same people who enacted it must, in the first place, 
put a man behind it who is sworn and determined 
to enforce it; and in the second place, they must 
stand back of him through the storm and stress 
of opposition — if there be any — and uphold him 
in such enforcement, maintaining him in office 
until the policy is permanently established, or has 



Alleged Failures of Prohibition. 333 

at least been thoroughly tested. Then one man 
can put a thousand to flight. 

We will inquire how far these conditions have 
been present in the history of prohibitory legisla- 
tion. We will take for this purpose the prohibi- 
tion policy at its best so far, namely, where it has 
been made a part of the constitution of a State. 

It came about in this way: The temperance 
forces of the State, after a thorough agitation and 
a vigorous campaign, have elected a legislature 
that is pledged to submit the question of a pro- 
hibitory constitutional amendment to the people. 
An amendment is drafted, and the time is fixed for 
the popular vote. For this purpose a special elec- 
tion may be ordered, as in Iowa (June 27, 1882) ; 
or the vote may be taken at the general State or 
Presidential election, as in Kansas (November 2, 
1880), Maine (September 8, 1884), Ehode Island 
(April 7, 1886), North Dakota and South Dakota 
(October 1, 1889). ]STow where the election was 
held by itself, as in Iowa, the matter was com- 
paratively simple. iSTo national or other State 
issue was present to obscure the horizon. There 
were no party interests to serve, and all party feel- 



334 A Century of Drink Eeform. 

ing was studiously repressed. Non-partisan was 
the magical word by which prejudice was disarmed 
and all the temperance sentiment brought together. 
The canvass was made solely on the merits of the 
issue. The temperance people for the most part 
voted for the amendment; all others, solidly 
against it. The amendment carries. Prohibition, 
thus enacted by the people without reference to 
party, now passes out of their hands into party 
hands — the party in power — for suitable legisla- 
tion and its enforcement. 

Or, to take the instance where the prohibitory 
amendment is voted on at the regular general elec- 
tion. Here again, the parties in the field do not 
take issue, probably, on this question, for the chief 
claim for this constitutional method is that it is 
strictly non-partisan. It does not make the ques- 
tion a football of party politics. The two things 
therefore are kept quite separate. The chief con- 
cern of the voter is not so much which party will 
win, as will the amendment carry. The temper- 
ance forces, irrespective of party, are working 
hard that it shall carry ; the liquor forces from all 
parties work equally hard on the other side. The 



Alleged Failures of Prohibition. 335 

ballots show a majority for the amendment. Pro- 
hibition has carried the day! It now passes into 
the hands of the party in power for its execution. 

But prohibition has not yet as a matter of fact 
wholly carried the day. It remains yet to be car- 
ried out. This rests now with the party in power. 
Did the temperance voters who stood together on 
the amendment think of this and stand together 
also to elect a party that was to make the law ef- 
fective ? Xo, they did not. They voted "Yes" on 
the amendment, unitedly, because they believed in 
the suppression of the liquor business ; then they 
broke ranks and voted for the several parties and 
party candidates according to their convictions 
upon the tariff, or civil service, or bimetallism, 
and like questions of national policy. The liquor 
element did the same, after voting "Xo" on the 
amendment. The prohibition policy, established 
by the people without reference to party, thus 
passes into party hands for its life or death — that 
is, for its enforcement. Who is this party in 
power — what bond has it for the proper fulfillment 
of its duty ? 

First of all is to be noted the fact that the 



336 A Century of Drink Keform. 

party in power owed its success at the polls to 
the combined votes of both those who have ardently 
championed, and those who have as bitterly op- 
posed, the very law which it will be the party's 
chief task to carry into execution. The party is 
one or the other of the two parties that have held 
the reins of office in our land for many years. The 
one goes back to Thomas Jefferson as its founder ; 
and though it has passed through changes of time 
and a change of name, it maintains that the suc- 
cession is unbroken. The other party came into 
being, like a new continent, with the seismic dis- 
turbances of later abolition days, when the pent-up 
feelings of the people found vent and submerged 
slavery in a sea of human blood. With the issues 
settled that brought these parties into being, they 
have since then taken up various new issues from 
time to time. But they have never taken up the 
liquor question, neither of them. Locally they 
have sometimes given some expression upon it, for 
or against; but never nationally, except expressly 
to repudiate it. They have other issues. The 
question what to do with the public traffic in alco- 
holic liquors, does not form the dividing line be- 



Alleged Failures oe Prohibition. 337 

tween them. One's convictions on this question, 
either way, do not form the basis and bond of party 
"union, nor are they called for as a test of party 
fealty. These parties are compactly and com- 
pletely organized, and from national to township 
elections full separate party candidates are named, 
and party lines are closely drawn. The national 
party organization, in each case, sets the pace, and 
from President to pathmaster the party candidate 
marches in lock-step. The party shibboleth may 
be this, or now that ; but it has nothing to do with 
the public traffic in strong drink. 

Thus when Maine, in the heated political can- 
vass of 1884, voted on the question of putting 
prohibition into her constitution at her September 
State election, Mr. Blaine, though personally con- 
vinced of the benefits of prohibition, and on record 
to that effect, refused to vote either way on the 
amendment, though he had been urged to lend his 
influence in its favor. In explanation of his posi- 
tion, Mr. Blaine said in an address that same night 
at Augusta: "The issue of a temperance amend- 
ment to the constitution has been very properly 
and very rigidly separated from the political con- 
22 



338 A Century of Drink Eeform. 

test of the State to-day. Many Democrats voted 
for it, and some Republicans voted against it. The 
Republican party, by the desire of many leading 
temperance men, took no action as a party on the 
amendment. For myself, I decided not to vote at 
all on the question. I took this position because 
I am chosen by the Republican party as the rep- 
resentative of national issues, and, by no act of 
mine shall any question be obtruded into the na- 
tional campaign which belongs properly to the do- 
main of State politics." That is to say, the liquor 
question has no place in a national campaign; it 
belongs to State politics, and in the State it is very 
rigidly and very properly separated from party 
issues and party lines. 

It is into the hands of a party thus constituted 
and elected on other issues, which has never taken 
a well defined position on the drink question, and 
has within its ranks both a temperance and a liquor 
element, that the prohibition policy is thrust for 
its life. A swaddled infant has been laid in the 
party's lap, to call forth the mingled feigned love, 
fear, and aversion of an irregular parentage. Will 
the party look faithfully after the law? It will 



Alleged Failures oe Prohibition. 339 

not do it effectually if it can; it can not do it 
effectually if it will. The party will do one of 
three things, any of which will turn out rather 
adversely for the cause of temperance. 

1. The party will try to conciliate both its 
temperance and its liquor constituents, endeavor- 
ing to retain the favor and support of both by not 
too seriously offending either. This is obviously 
the first recourse. Any party will be slow to 
hazard its life unnecessarily on an extraneous is- 
sue like temperance. If it is true of an individual 
that self-preservation is nature's first law, it is 
more true of an established political party. An in- 
dividual, under great stress of soul, may sometimes 
forget considerations of safety and even court 
death ; but a political party never. It is true that 
in the beginning a party is sometimes launched 
forth upon some wave of moral impulse, but after 
it becomes of age and begins to feel the exhilara- 
tion of success, of applause and emolument, its aim 
becomes less ethical, and its spirit less heroic. It 
comes to be moved more and more by the one con- 
sideration — success, that is, victory at the polls. 
In the meantime it develops, by specialization, a 



340 A Century of Drink Reform. 

set of men — the practical or professional politi- 
cians, office-holders, and office-seekers — whose spe- 
cial work it is to emphasize this necessity of suc- 
cess, and to steer the party craft intact through the 
breakers of discontent and popular caprice, which 
ever and again threaten it with disruption and de- 
feat. Expediency rather than right becomes the 
rule of party action. Fidelity of its oath of office 
counts for something, of course, but the interests 
of party are supreme. 

In its relation to the prohibitory law, there- 
fore, the party will adopt a conservative attitude 
just as far as this is possible. The situation is 
serious, for the party owes its success to the com- 
bined votes of those who have ardently favored, 
and those who have determinedly opposed, the 
very policy of prohibition which the party's offi- 
cials have now taken a solemn oath to enforce. 
The law will not be enforced — very rigidly. In 
localities where temperance sentiment is strong, 
the enforcement, under local pressure and by local 
officials, will be more stringent. In other locali- 
ties, where sentiment is less pronounced and pres- 
sure from the liquor element is felt, the law will 



Alleged Failures of Prohibition. 341 

be more or less openly violated. The party will 
adopt no general, uniform policy of enforcement 
the State over, as it not only has a right to do, but 
is in duty bound to do if local officials fail of their 
duty, or need re-enforcement. In taking this atti- 
tude the party will please most and offend the few- 
est among its own number. It will impress upon 
the temperance people, those within the party at 
least, that it is making every reasonable effort to 
enforce the law as far as sentiment will permit. 
And party loyalty is strong enough on this side to 
make such course reasonably safe, nothing less than 
undisguised party perfidy or open insult being 
likely to cause these to break away. On the other 
hand, the liquor and anti-prohibition elements 
within the party will content themselves with the 
furthest concessions which may reasonably be ex- 
pected, the situation being bad at the best. 

This appears to have been the situation, for in- 
stance, in Kansas, which led to the Carrie Nation 
joint-smashing crusade, of recent, terrible memory. 
It has been the policy, more or less, at some time or 
other, in every State that has had, or has, prohi- 
bition. It is from this condition of things that 



342 A Cestttjey of Dei^k Refoeim. 

much of what we hear of the failure of prohibi- 
tion originates. That there is a failure somewhere 
here — this appears manifest. 

2. The party in office, again, after the people 
have declared for prohibition, may secretly yield 
so far to the influence of the liquor interests by 
refusing, in its legislative capacity, to enact meas- 
ures sufficient to carry prohibition into effect, or 
refusing in its executive capacity, to tnj reason- 
ably to enforce such measures as it has enacted, 
that the very people who supported the amend- 
ment will now, in sad disgust at the law's failure, 
vote for its repeal. 

This was the case, for instance, in Rhode 
Island under the short constitutional prohibition 
regime, from 1886 to 1889. The people, aroused 
at the dictation of the liquor power in State poli- 
tics, and at the disregard by the party in power 
for the open violation of the very moderate restric- 
tion laws throughout the State, voted by more 
than the required three-fifths majority for consti- 
tutional prohibition. Under the double system, 
again, of voting at such time — voting now on the 
amendment, now for a national party organization 



Alleged Failures oe Prohibition. 343 

■ — a system under which the right hand knows not 
what the left doeth, the prohibition policy was en- 
trusted for its enforcement to the self-same party 
at whose subservience to the liquor interests the 
people had just protested. The leopard did not — 
perhaps could not — change his spots. The party 
remained subservient to the liquor interests still. 
The legislative measures enacted to make prohibi- 
tion effective were inadequate. Amendments to 
these measures were promised in return for tem- 
perance support, but never materialized. The 
State and local officials, who had sworn to admin- 
ister the laws of the commonwealth honestly and 
impartially, were largely indifferent to open viola- 
tions of the prohibitory law, — officials, to quote the 
attorney-general of the State, that could have made 
the law affective "had they shown any honest dis- 
position to respect their oaths of office." The chief 
party journals, notably the Providence Journal, 
which fought prohibition from the beginning, at- 
tributed these violations to the inherent weakness 
of the prohibition policy, rather than where it be- 
longed, to inherent weakness in the party's officials. 
Thus after three years of violation and open 



344 A Ce^tuey of Drotk Reform. 

abuse, at the very time when temperance people 
were looking for more effective legislation, in ac- 
cordance with recent party pledges, and for a more 
determined effort at enforcement, the legislature, 
under the liquor lobby's influence passed a vote to 
submit the amendment to the people for repeal. 
And by practically cutting off public discussion in 
fixing the date for the popular vote at twenty days ; 
by specially changing and putting off the time at 
which a ballot reform act was to go into effect 
until after that date ; by misrepresentation and lay- 
ing the blame all on the law; by money, and by 
the honest conviction of large numbers of good 
men that it "can't be done," the amendment was 
repealed. Which was true : it can't be done — that 
way. 

3. The party in power, on the other hand, 
may seek no favor and tolerate no complicity with 
the liquor interests, but with a respect unto its 
oath of office seek an honest and determined en- 
forcement of the prohibitory law. It may not be 
able to do this completely, owing to the limitations, 
territorial and other, imposed upon the party from 
without and from within, yet reasonably and suffi- 



Alleged Failures of Prohibition. 345 

ciently well to give all encouragement to the 
friends of temperance. The prohibition policy, 
from its achievement of good and its promise of 
yet greater good as thus administered, may have 
every prospect of permanence and of offering a 
last glad solution of the whole vexed drink ques- 
tion — and the next election will come around. At 
that election this will take place: the temperance 
votes of the State will, as usual, be divided among 
the several parties as an expression upon national 
party issues, while the liquor interests, instead of 
voting dividedly as before, will now, with their 
business-above-party policy, throw their united 
support against the party in power, and defeat it. 
From the time when the first prohibition law 
was enacted, that of Maine, in 1851, over which 
the Democratic party in that State went to pieces, 
up to the present time, wherever the party officials 
have taken their oaths of office seriously, this has 
been the result. The most conspicuous instance of 
this is the experience in Iowa. When under the 
four years' governorship of William Larrabee, a 
sincere champion of prohibition from the time 
that he saw its fruits, the breweries of the State 



346 A Century of Drink Reform. 

had been turned into oatmeal mills and the distil- 
leries into canning factories; when legitimate 
trade had everywhere expanded, and the only busi- 
ness that had been ruined was the saloon business ; 
when the State had paid off its last cent of bonded 
indebtedness, and its bank deposits had increased 
to exceed those of Illinois, both in number and in 
amount; when, next to Kansas, she ranked first 
in the Union in the number of children, in propor- 
tion to the population, attending school; when 
criminal business and expenses had been reduced 
from thirty to seventy-five per cent, and the jails 
in many counties were for the first time entirely 
empty, and there were fewer tramps and paupers 
in the State than ever before; when Governor 
Larrabee had but recently declared that the law 
was growing steadily in public favor, that prohi- 
bition was "beyond doubt the settled policy of 
Iowa," and would be ratified, were it submitted to 
a vote of the people, by an overwhelming majority 
"of from sixty to eighty thousand," — it was then 
that the party through whom these things had 
been wrought, a party which in the Presidential 
election the year before had received a plurality 



Alleged Failures oe Prohibition. 347 

of thirty-two thousand votes, "was now, in the State 
election of 1889, defeated by a plurality of nearly 
seven thousand votes. The Republican party was 
defeated by a former member of that party, Hor- 
ace Boies, an opponent of prohibition, who had 
left his party when it first took up this question, 
and now as the nominee of the Democratic party 
drew the liquor and anti-prohibition vote to his 
side. After four years of inaction and repudia- 
tion, during his incumbency, when the law had 
been put to an almost open shame, public senti- 
ment had been sufficiently numbed to acquiesce in 
the enactment, by the legislature of 1894, of the 
Martin or "mulct" law, whereby saloons are per- 
mitted, or statedly "fined/' in cities and towns 
where a specified majority desire them. 

Thus did prohibition "fail" in Iowa. 

While this is all plain enough, still, because 
we have here a somewhat crucial instance, we will 
go into the matter a little more in detail. Strictly 
speaking, Iowa has never been under constitutional 
prohibition; yet practically the same conditions 
have prevailed, except that the virtual abrogation 
of prohibition by the enactment of the mulct law 



348 A Century of Drink Reform. 

was accomplished by the legislature without the 
sanction of a popular vote. No sooner had the 
people, in 1882, declared for prohibition by a sub- 
stantial majority, when the Supreme Court, by 
majority decision, pronounced the vote unconsti- 
tutional on grounds of a technicality, that hole of 
offense through which many a precious interest of 
society has been lost. Three words appeared in 
the text of the amendment as submitted to the 
people that were not found in the legislative jour- 
nal as kept by the clerk of the House. Though 
the substance of the law was not changed in the 
least, still the submission was declared irregular, 
and the vote null and void. These jots and tittles 
of the law mean more to the judicial than they do 
to the executive branch of our Government. 

The temperance people were determined, how- 
ever, not to lose the fruits of victory. A mass 
State convention of all the temperance elements 
was held, regardless of party, and the declaration 
was sent forth that the party in power would be 
held responsible for any failure to carry out the 
expressed desire of the large majority of the peo- 
ple on this question. In response to this senti- 



Alleged Failures of Prohibition. 349 

ment the next legislature (Republican) passed a 
statutory prohibition law, which went into effect 
July 4, 1884. This came near undoing the party. 
There was an abundance of temperance sentiment 
behind prohibition in the State, but it was not all 
behind this particular party that was now charged 
to enforce it. The Republican party had a large 
majority, doubtless, that supported prohibition; 
but it also had an integral element that opposed it, 
and a house divided against itself can not stand — 
very long. 

Had the Republican party been the only party 
in the field, the better elements within it would 
doubtless have triumphed, and prohibition have 
been retained. But with another party anxious to 
get into the saddle, of almost equal strength, and 
ready to take any advantage of its opponent's 
predicament, — a party to which its anti-prohibi- 
tion and malcontent elements may decamp, a 
straight out-and-out policy on this question could 
not but be hazardous. With the election of 1889 
the calamity came, as we have seen. Had the tem- 
perance voters been united in the Republican 
party, or in any party, or under no party name. 



350 A Century of Drink Reform. 

this would not have happened. But they were 
busy arguing earnestly with one another over na- 
tional party questions, such as who was the greater 
man, Jefferson or Lincoln, Andrew Jackson or 
Grant. While they were deciding this, the liquor 
interests decided what should be done with prohi- 
bition. 

From this experience party leaders were to 
learn wisdom. When one is felled by an unex- 
pected blow, the first inquiry on recovering the 
senses is, whence came it ? Being out of office, 
the next step with the politician is to get back in. 
This he does, never by enlightening the human 
mind and removing prejudice in appeal to the 
higher ideals of citizenship, but by taking a studied 
advantage of these very weaknesses for personal 
or party ends. The course to be pursued now be- 
came plain. The party must rid itself of the in- 
cubus of prohibition. Whether the people through- 
out the State, if they could have expressed them- 
selves by non-partisan ballot on this question, 
would have still cast a majority for prohibition — 
"of from sixty to eighty thousand," as Governor 
Larrabee had declared, — this was little to the 



Alleged Failures of Prohibition. 351 

point. The fact was, the Republican party had 
championed this issue, with all the hazard which 
that involved, and the people had not sustained it. 
Besides the party interests in the State, national 
party interests also demanded the abandoning of 
prohibition. The party in Iowa was anxious to 
push forward its most illustrious son for the honors 
of the Presidency, and with a party in his own 
State behind him, stoutly committed to prohibi- 
tion, his handicap in the nation at large would 
likely prove too considerable. 

Pursuant to new plans, therefore, a bill pro- 
viding for local option was introduced in the leg- 
islature, in 1892, a measure which, though it had 
the support of the party press, was defeated. A 
more definite step was taken the following year to 
abandon prohibition; The party at its State con- 
vention that year declared as follows : "Resolved, 
That prohibition is no test of Republicanism. That 
the General Assembly has given to the State a pro- 
hibitory law as strong as has ever been enacted by 
any government. That, like all criminal statutes, 
its retention, modification, or repeal, must be de- 
termined by the General Assembly, elected by and 



352 A Century of Deink Reform. 

in sympathy with the people, and to them is rele- 
gated the subject, to take such action as they deem 
just and best in the matter ; to maintain the pres- 
ent law in those portions of the State where it is 
now or can be made efficient, and give to other lo- 
calities such methods of controlling and regulat- 
ing the liquor traffic as will serve the cause of tem- 
perance and morality." 

On this platform the Republican party again 
came into possession of its birthright — the State 
administration. In accordance with this position 
of the party platform, the mulct law was passed 
the following year, in 1894, and signed by the 
Republican governor. Under this policy the ele- 
ments that temporarily left the party have come 
back, and the party has recently carried its sixth 
consecutive election. It is significant of the 
change of political fortunes and favors, that the 
present incumbent of the executive office, Mr. A. 
B. Cummins, elected in 1901, and re-elected in 
1903, should be the very one who in 1889 led the 
anti-prohibition faction out of the Republican 
party, and helped to defeat it. 

Notwithstanding these known, or ascertainable 



Alleged Failures of Prohibition. 353 

facts, there are those who have persistently at- 
tributed the defeat of prohibition in Iowa to the 
prohibition or "third" party. This minority party 
has indeed served as a convenient scapegoat for 
the sins of many. During those years when pro- 
hibition was really at stake in Iowa, the "third" 
party exerted no appreciable influence, casting 
only a scattering vote. Its largest vote was cast 
before the question had ever been generally thought 
of as an issue in State politics, namely in 1877, 
when the Prohibition party polled 10,545 votes. 
It was this considerable vote, indeed, together with 
the pressure from the temperance elements within 
the Republican party, that first made prohibition 
an issue. When the Republican party in 1879 de- 
clared its willingness to submit the temperance 
question to the people, the "third" party vote fell 
to 3,258. In 1&85, when the Republican party 
had actually taken up the issue, the "third" party 
vote fell to 1,405. In 1887, when the Republican 
party showed its good faith by renominating Gov- 
ernor Larrabee, only 309 ballots went to a separate 
"third" party ticket, from the entire State. In 
1889, when the Republican defeat came, the 
23 



354 A Century of Dkeetk Refoem. 

"third" party vote aggregated 1,35 S. Inasmuch 
as the Republican party was beaten by a plurality 
of 6,523 in this election, it could not have won 
even if it had received the entire "third" party 
vote, assuming that this entire vote belonged to it 
of right. Again, in 1891, when the Republican 
party was still committed to prohibition, in spite 
of defection, only 915 voted an independent, or 
"third" party ticket. In IS 93, however, when the 
Republican party definitely abandoned prohibi- 
tion, and the struggle was practically over. 10,319 
votes were again cast for the Prohibition, or 
"third party. If now the 1,3 5 S "third" party 
votes in 1889, and the 915 votes in 1891, defeated 
the Republican party in each case, why did not 
the 10,319 "third" party votes in 1S93 also de- 
feat i: I 

Thus have the temperance people in many 
States asked for bread, and they have received — 
strong drink. They asked, but they asked amiss. 
and therefore received not. They had the correct 
principle, but their methods were bungling. The 
heart was right, but the head was not clear. 

In all these reversals of the policy of prohibi- 



Alleged Failures of Prohibition. 355 

tion, whether constitutional or statutory simply, 
it should be borne in mind that with the exception 
of Rhode Island, South Dakota, and Vermont, 
prohibition has never yet been repealed by the peo- 
ple themselves. The manner of repeal in Rhode 
Island has already been noted. In South Dakota, 
through the liberal use of money in the legislature 
by the brewing and liquor interests outside the 
State, the amendment was first resubmitted to the 
people, and by the colonization of large numbers 
of voters from across the State line, — a thing made 
possible under the loose registration laws of the 
State — a small majority was secured for repeal, in 
1897. In Vermont, after fifty-one years of un- 
broken prohibition, with the surrounding States 
all making and selling liquor, and seeking to break 
down the law, in a popular referendum, in Feb- 
ruary, 1903, the people voted for local option by 
a majority of about 1,200 in a total vote of 60,000. 
Official collusion and party incapacity have 
crippled prohibition laws ; legislatures, yielding to 
corruption or to party expediency, have repealed 
them; governors have vetoed, courts have scruti- 
nized and declared void, and our great Govern- 



356 A Century of Dezs-k Eefoem. 

ment, through it all, has spoken peace to the sa- 
loon; but the honest sentiment of the people them- 
selves, as shown in the continued support they have 
given to prohibition with all its handicap, and as 
seen in the constantly growing area under local 
option — uneven though that contest is, — these, 
with many other incontestible proofs, show that 
conviction has never been so deep or widespread 
as it is to-day, that the dramshop and the entire 
commerce in strong drink must be suppressed. 



(II.) 

CHAPTEE XI. 

The Lessors of Experience: A Temperance 
Constituency. 

But will the people ever succeed in establish- 
ing prohibition, and do away with drinking en- 
tirely, do you think ?" 

Omniscience alone could answer that. Predic- 
tion is hazardous, and may become fatuous. 'No 
man can say yes or no to this, of knowledge ; for 
we deal here not with an objective, demonstrable 
truth, but with that somewhat uncertain factor, 
human impulses and the human will. That man 
is better off, every way, without the use of strong 
drink, and that he ought therefore of reason not to 
drink, this is readily demonstrable. That society 
— man in the aggregate — would be better off, 
every way, without the trade of liquor-selling, this 
too can scarcely be seriously questioned. But to 
induce the tippling man actually to leave his cup ; 
to prevail upon the aggregation of men, with their 
357 



358 A Century of Driinte: Reform. 

diverse prejudices and self-interests, actually to 
address themselves to putting this offense out of 
their way, — this is a somewhat different matter. 
Whether a man will say yes or no to this, will de- 
pend largely upon his philosophy and view-point 
of life. To say that these things will be accom- 
plished, resolves itself into a matter of faith in 
God and in human nature; a faith, namely, that 
in the free field of self-government, whether per- 
sonal or political, individual or social, the better 
elements in man will in the long run predominate ; 
that he will both discern and do that which is right 
and good. To ridicule these things, therefore, as 
there are always those who do, clinching it with a 
lofty, laconic "Never!" as though they possessed 
some superior knowledge of the world and of men, 
indicates nothing superior whatever. It does not 
speak to the credit of anybody. 

The fact that in every State and community of 
the nation the moral forces have repeatedly and 
with increasing energy thrown themselves into this 
great conflict, and have failed of complete success 
only, not so much from a lack of zeal and deter- 
mination as from a lack of clear knowledge, — the 



The Lessons of Experience. 359 

fact that the temperance reformation over the conn- 
try at large lacks yet of being accomplished chiefly 
because men have hitherto not been able to see 
clearly how it could be done, or because they are 
yet laboring under the delusion of gain, — these 
things point strongly to but one ultimate outcome. 
And when the temperance people see clearly that 
it can be done, and how; when the commercial 
citizen, Esau's child, awakens to a knowledge of 
the fact that not only will a town and a State be 
able to meet its expenses without the saloon, but 
that when the vast wealth which is now worse than 
wasted on liquor shall be turned aside to the build- 
ing of roads, and into the legitimate lines of trade, 
towns and communities will for the first time be- 
gin to enjoy real prosperity; when the drinker be- 
gins to realize that a man will not die even if de- 
prived of his grog; and the drink-seller, increas- 
ingly aware that the Church, the school, and every 
wife and mother are against his business, and or- 
ganizations of labor, of industry and insurance, 
fraternal orders — everybody, even his own con- 
science, — when the drink-seller begins to see that 
there are abundant other occupations at which he 



860 A Century of Drink Reform. 

may earn a living — an unquestioned, respectable 
living, and take his place again in society, with his 
family, — then, then the end of the long conflict 
will have been brought near. 

The much-mentioned "failures" of prohibition 
throw a flood of light upon the intricacies of this 
question. They are of more value than many 
theories. They are an indictment which falls 
where those who bring it forth have least foreseen. 
The liquor man who cries "failure" is hurling a 
boomerang that comes back to his own law-defying, 
intimidating, corrupting self, who is at bottom the 
whole cause of such failure; who is law-abiding 
only when the law is to his liking ; who affirms the 
principle of majority rule so long as it permits 
him to inflict himself upon the community, but de- 
nies it when it says that such infliction shall cease. 
As long as the temperance people are in the mi- 
nority they must suffer him; when they have be- 
come a majority they must still suffer him. 

The temperance man, on the other hand, who 
speaks of failure, condemns the very method which 
he has advocated as ideal and sufficient to achieve 
the suppression of the drink trade. Moreover, he 



The Lessons of Experience. 361 

confesses to his own inconsistency. He went forth 
under the banner of non-partisanship to conquer, 
and abandoned that standard in the very crisis of 
the fight. He followed the non-partisan method 
only long enough to say that he wanted prohibi- 
tion ; all the rest was left in party hands. He was 
so zealous that the temperance question should 
not be made the football of party politics, yet it 
was his own hands that unwittingly rolled it into 
the party arena. Whatever neglect and abuse pro- 
hibition has suffered it has received there. 

The situation then is this: party machinery 
defeating popular sentiment and popular will, 
either by not doing the work of enforcement well 
enough, or by doing it well enough and going to 
pieces. The drink question may have been safe 
enough in party hands fifty years ago, but it is 
not so now. An entirely different condition con- 
fronts us. The liquor business, under the disci- 
pline of heavy taxation, has become solidly organ- 
ized, strong, keen, resourceful, and jealous for its 
preservation. Its sphere of operation is politics, 
and behind the party form of government it finds 
an impregnable bulwark. It has for many years 



362 A Century of Drustk Reform. 

been the most active and dominant single factor in 
our political life. It is a force which every office- 
seeker has felt, and every aspirant to office must 
reckon with. To antagonize it openly means a 
heavy handicap for any man in the political race. 
This is true not only of the individual, but of the 
party as well, as every wise party leader knows. 
Ethics is thus apt to be sacrificed to expediency, 
personal honor to the itch for office. Experience 
in public life seems to corroborate the somewhat 
cynical reflection of the late Senator John J. In- 
galls, when he said of the relation of ethics to poli- 
tics, that the party that takes for its rule the Deca- 
logue and the Sermon on the Mount may retain, 
after election, the approval of conscience, but that 
the other side will get about everything else. 

But, with reference to this question, it will be 
contended, is not the overwhelming temperance 
sentiment of the country entitled to respect ? It 
certainly is. It is not considerations of respect, 
however, that determine the policy of a political 
party. It is fear and hope rather, motives of pru- 
dence, which govern party action. It is this mo- 
tive, when thrown into the scales of political wis- 



The Lessors op Expekiexce. 363 

dom, that inclines the beam toward the interests of 
liquor. Thus, while our parties have a large tem- 
perance constituency which they would like not to 
offend, they have also a large liquor constituency 
which they dare not offend. For if the party 
should take a strong and unequivocal stand on the 
side of temperance, its liquor element would 
quickly and without compunction leave it and de- 
feat it. If on the other hand, the party maintains 
conciliatory and friendly relations with the liquor 
interests, its temperance element will still remain 
with it, the party leaders focusing the mind upon 
other things ; and so, with the support of both, in 
a contest where all mention of the troublesome 
question is carefully avoided, the party wins. Con- 
sequently when a liquor man and a temperance 
man vote for the same party candidate, the former 
assured that his business will not be molested, and 
the latter believing and hoping that it will be, it 
is the latter who is usually disappointed. 

But it does not seem possible that the children 
of this world should be so much and constantly 
wiser than the children of light, you say. This ob- 
servation has at least the corroborative testimony 



364 A Cextuey of Decs"e: Refoem. 

of age. It should be said, however, that such ad- 
vantage in the instance of the drink struggle has 
not been gained in wholly open and honorable com- 
bat. It has been won by a subterfuge movement. 
Sin first deceives, then slays. Thus, while our 
political parties maintain a conciliatory policy 
ward the liquor vote, in order not to lose its sup- 
port, they would hardly have the effrontery 
come before the temperance people and make ap- 
peal for their vote also, on the basis of this atti- 
tude. It is by persuading the temperance v 
this is of but small consequence either way just at 
this juncture, that temperance should not be mixed 
up with politics : that the urgent question calling 
for decision is. shall our commercial integrity be 
preserved, our national honor vindicated, and na- 
tional calamity be averted, — it is by diverting the 
nin such absorbing counter interests that the 

party pilots, having made peace with the liquor in- 
terests, are able also to win the enthusiastic sup- 
port of the temperance vote, and steer clear of the 
breakers of revolt. 

Thus while the liquor voter knows no other 
issue in a political canvass until his own is safe, 



The Lessons of Experience. 365 

the temperance voter knows no drink issue until 
all others are safe. 

Tims whichever party wins, the liquor man 
lands on top. 

Thus all efforts to induce our political parties 
to give recognition to the temperance question in 
their platforms have been futile and vain. 

Thus w T hile in every State, every county, city, 
and village where men have labored to be rid of 
the saloon, the very difficulties and failures of en- 
forcement have been so many formal appeals to the 
nation's capital for relief, this question is waiting 
to-day, with its cumulative evidence, before this 
final court of adjudication, and by perpetual post- 
ponement is denied a hearing. 

The fact that there are two fairly balanced par- 
ties in the nation, who by virtue of their persistent 
championship of other issues have divided the tem- 
perance sentiment of the country between them, 
has enabled the liquor interests to maintain an 
effectual balance of power between them on the 
drink question. Neither party will recognize this 
question, rid itself entirely of its liquor contingent 
and be willing to suffer defeat, if need be for a 



366 A Centuky of Dei^k Reform. 

season, until it shall have gathered to its standard 
the moral forces of the nation, and carried this re- 
form to its consummation. 

The question must be taken out of the sphere 
of partisan politics. The method which wrought 
such majorities for prohibition in Kansas, Iowa, 
Maine, Rhode Island, and the Dakotas, and piled 
up so large a vote in a dozen other States, suggests 
to us the correct method of procedure. It is the 
non-partisan method, as it has been named, with 
this difference, that it shall now be consistently 
employed to the end. The crippling and partial 
failure of prohibition in these States has not been 
due to the non-partisan method, but to the aban- 
donment of that method the moment prohibition 
had been declared for. To carry out a public 
policy requires not alone the enactment of a law, 
but the faithful execution also of that law, until 
its benefits shall have become so manifest and gen- 
erally accepted that serious opposition to it will 
cease. Especially is this true of prohibition, which 
encounters difficulties unknown to other laws. 
K"ow in these States the non-partisan method did 
not even extend to the framing of the law, still less 



The Lessons of Experience. 367 

to its enforcement. All these things were left to 
regular party machinery, with such means and 
disposition as were found at hand. The non-par- 
tisan method went so far as to say, simply, that 
the people wanted such a law. But it did enable 
the people to find their voice on this question, and 
to speak so clearly as to be heard above the din of 
political strife. Herein lies the promise of this 
method. Only something more is necessary than 
going to the polls and recording a wish. To a self- 
governing people is given the privilege and power 
to carry this wish into effect. 

The same people, therefore, who in a momen- 
tary forgetfulness of party feeling have said that 
they wanted a prohibition law, must keep in their 
own hands also the actual framing of such a law, 
and themselves enforce it. Under our form of 
government this is done through chosen represent- 
atives. To this end all those who have cast their 
votes together, regardless of party, for prohibition, 
must also cast their ballots together for certain 
men of their own number — legislators — who will 
adequately enact this policy into law; and again 
cast their ballots together for certain other men 



368 A Century of Drink Keform. 

of their own number — executive officials — who 
will effectually carry this law into execution. This 
is not yet enough. These voters must for a time 
at least remain together — they must form a con- 
stituency — to uphold their representatives in office, 
so that these latter, after having faithfully done 
their work, shall not be subtly dislodged from office 
by the enemy, but shall be retained in power until 
the storm and stress is over, and the law shall have 
become a part of the established policy of the com- 
monwealth. 

Portland, Maine, has recently offered a sug- 
gestive experiment in law enforcement. Maine 
has a strong, faultless prohibition law, but the 
executive officials to whom it has been entrusted 
have not always been above suspicion. Not a few 
of them here, as elsewhere, have been observed 
after their term of office to build large houses and 
to live comfortably ever afterwards. The temper- 
ance people of Cumberland County, in the fall of 
1900, having become exercised over the condition 
of affairs, forgot their party affiliations for a mo- 
ment and united on Rev. Samuel F. Pearson, a 
Methodist mission worker in Portland^ for the 



The Lessons of Experience. 369 

office of sheriff. He had avowed that if elected 
he would enforce prohibition and bring every law- 
breaker to justice; and the people believed him. 
The records show that he kept his promise. Here 
in Maine's largest city, a short distance only from 
the Js"ew Hampshire line where the manufacture 
of liquor is made lawful, and from Massachusetts 
where both the making and selling of strong drink 
are a source of large revenue to the State, — in this 
seaport city and railroad center with such trans- 
portation facilities by land and water, here this 
determined man, with several doughty deputies, 
wrought such works that his name went out to the 
ends of the nation. Every ingenious or desperate 
device, such as is known only to criminals, was re- 
peatedly foiled, and the last persistent, boasting, 
defying law-breaker gave up the fight in despair. 
The saloon closed up business in Portland, and in 
Cumberland County ; the city gained in peace and 
order, and according to the report of the mayor, 
realized a considerable saving in its poor account. 
The Pearson regime in Portland showed two 
things: (1) what temperance voters can do when 
they get together to secure the right kind of man 
24 



370 A Ce^tuet of Deixk Eeeoe^i. 

for office: and (2) what such man can do to gal- 
vanize a "dead" law into life, and make it a terror 
to the evil-doer and an instrument of blessing to 
the community. One thing only remained to be 
demonstrated, prevented by the sudden death of 
Mr. Pearson shortly before his term expired: 
would the temperance voters of Cumberland 
County have stood by Mr. Pearson in the next 
election I 

So prohibition statute can be enforced perma- 
nently without a prohibition constituency. Herein 
is revealed the weakness of having the representa- 
tive of a party (a part) carry out what the people 
(a whole) have decreed. Xo party we have yet 
had has been able to furnish safe backing for an 
official to do his duty with respect to prohibition. 
Many an executive official, from governor and 
State's attorney to town constable, has honestly 
tried to enforce such laws. Wise political man- 
agers -look their heads and warned them to relax 
their zeal, that he was hurting party interests and 
himself. Perhaps he gave heed, with the result we 
all know. Perhaps he did not, with the result that 
the morning after the next election he was found 



The Lessors of Experience. 371 

outside the battlements — dead. His own party 
deserts him, or if it does cling to him both go 
down to defeat. There is but small encourage- 
ment for an official to do his full, toilsome duty 
when he knows that it will more than likely only 
cost him his place, and that his work will only be 
undone. Over and over again has this taken place, 
and the apparent apathy or recession in temper- 
ance interest in many communities is due to this 
circumstance more than to any other. The people 
have become weary in well-doing. They do not 
know what to do. 

Form a temperance constituency! 

Had the temperance people of Iowa, for in- 
stance, who in 1882 voted for prohibition by thirty 
thousand majority, stood together to elect men 
who were to enact suitable legislation, and men to 
enforce such legislation; supporting in national 
campaigns such party candidates as they might 
severally choose, but knowing in each succeeding 
State election no issue but the suppression of the 
dramshop, stone deaf to every party name, appeal, 
or device to separate them, — had the temperance 
voters with their safe majority remained together 



I ~~ A Cz^tttey or Bzz^x Ezzoem. 

on this issue and repeatedly returned to office those 
who had been faithful in the law's enforcement, 
"until men had forgotten their thirst, and a genera- 
tion grown up who had never known it, then there 
would have been no waning and loss of majorities, 
no Governor Boies, no mulct law^ no "failure" of 
prohibition. 

L~: us now apply these principles on a national 
scale, as we must. The cry of the campaign must 
f. On U Washington! VTi:h the rebel dislodged 
here, the Appomattox of this conflict will speedily 
follow, and the slave be set free. But how shall 
we get ~ Washington! In the States the ques- 
tion was b {namely submitted to the voters, and they 
had a fair chance at it. The temperance people 
made snch a lond stir that the legislature heard 
and gave heed, and said, Here \s the question ; vote 
on it. But how shall we get this question before 
the people of the nation for a vote! There has 
been no lack of stir, of agitation and appeal. The 
Churches in particular, representing a voting 
strength of several million, and a moral strength of 
millions more, declare peremptorily at every eccle- 
siastical convention that the sanction of the drink 



The Lessons of Experience. 373 

traffic is a national infamy, and must not be toler- 
ated. Our national parties have been importuned 
that they declare in favor of submitting the drink 
question to the people, — a very reasonable request, 
as Senator Blair used to insist. The members of 
Congress have been labored with, and resolutions 
have been introduced into Congress proposing a 
prohibitory amendment to the Constitution, and 
submitting it to the people for a vote. It has all 
been in vain. 

The people must clearly take the initiative. It 
is not so difficult. From every pulpit and eccle- 
siastical convention — where sober truth is uttered, 
if anywhere — word has gone out that the disposal 
of this question is of more vital concern to the in- 
terests of the Christian Church and of humanity 
than is any other question within sight to-day. 
And the citizen, as he looks about him and sees 
things as they occur in his own community, and 
everywhere, will honestly respond deep in his own 
heart, "It is true; it is true; it is surely true." 
]STow, a thing so spoken must not be lightly for- 
gotten. It must not be forgotten when the vani- 
ties and allurements of the world would weave 



374 A Century of Drink Reform. 

about us their magic spell. When some political 
Simon Magus, with pageant of trumpetry and il- 
lumination, would work some charm upon the mul- 
titude with the mighty names of Jefferson, or Lin- 
coln, men must not childlike be carried away and 
forget this. Jefferson and Lincoln — great men — 
are dead. This that has been declared from pul- 
pit and in solemn assembly and in the ears of the 
people everywhere, by voice of mouth and of con- 
science, before the political pageant came in sight, 
must not be forgotten now, on election morning. 
Declarations, denunciations, resolutions, as an af- 
terthought when the voting has been done, have 
missed the time for action. The voter's booth is 
the citizen's confessional, where the sins of so- 
ciety must be openly recalled and confessed. Not 
prayers, nor tears, nor declarations, but votes are 
the immediate agency that determines a public 
policy. Public servants are hopelessly deaf to all 
sound except as it is spoken through the ear- 
trumpet, the voter's urn. 

On election morning then, at the ballot-box, 
the temperance voters must take the initiative. 
They must resolve, "We have declared this; we 



The Lessons oe Experience. 375 

believe it now; our action to-day shall not belie 
our word." If the professional party retainer 
comes around and asks, "And all other issues must 
wait till this one is settled?" they will reply, 
"This issue shall not wait until all others are set- 
tled." If he insists that there are other questions 
that demand attention, they will insist that the 
agitation and labors of a hundred years have given 
the drink question a well-earned right of preced- 
ence. If temperance voters can agree on other 
questions, well and good ; but they must not disa- 
gree on this one question. In every assembly dis- 
trict and every congressional district they must 
get together. 'No man must receive their vote on 
the basis of his party affiliations, but solely be- 
cause he stands squarely committed on the tem- 
perance question. Devotion to this principle must 
be the bond of union between them. Standing 
thus together in each congressional district, the 
temperance forces will insist that only such repre- 
sentatives are sent to Washington as are pledged 
to vote for the submission of a prohibitory amend- 
ment to the people. They will stand together in 
every State assembly and senatorial district, to 



376 A Cebttuby of Deikk Reform. 

send only men to the State legislature who will 
vote for a United States Senator that is likewise 
committed. When the senators and representa- 
tives in congress, so elected, have a two-thirds ma- 
jority, they will frame a prohibitory amendment 
to the Constitution and submit it to the legislatures 
of the several States. Here the temperance forces 
must have stood together, and from each district 
sent only such men to the legislature who will now 
be ready to vote favorably upon the amendment. 
When the amendment has been ratified by the 
legislatures in three-fourths of the States, it be- 
comes a part of the fundamental law of the land. 
It is a question whether Congress has not the 
power under the Constitution, without a specific 
amendment, to enact a general prohibitory law. 
It is true that hitherto the regulation, or disposal, 
of the drink traffic has been considered as belong- 
ing to the police function of the States. All 
powers not expressly delegated to Congress are re- 
served to the States and to the people; and the 
power to suppress the liquor traffic has not been 
thus expressly delegated to Congress. However, 
it is a question whether this matter is not so far 



The Lessons of Experience, 377 

removed from having a merely local aspect, affect- 
ing as it does our national life and the whole peo- 
ple so vitally, and touching so closely the very func- 
tions of government itself, that, in the larger in- 
terpretation of the Constitution, it would not prop- 
erly come within the scope of Congressional action. 
If the United States Supreme Court, which inter- 
prets the Constitution both in its letter and spirit, 
has said that to sell intoxicating liquor is not an 
inherent right in a citizen either of a State or of 
the United States ; and if it is true, as the same 
court further declares, that the statistics of every 
State show a greater amount of crime and misery 
attributable to the use of the liquor obtained at 
these saloons than to any other one source; and 
that legislatures have no right to barter away the 
health and morals of a people, the people them- 
selves having no right to do it (i. e., to vote it), — 
with this understanding of facts and this inter- 
pretation of the Constitution, it is a question in- 
deed whether every license or permissive law, 
which allows this trade to go on, should not itself 
be adjudged unconstitutional. It would seem that 
there could be little doubt that a government which 



378 A Century of Drink Eeform. 

was established "to insure domestic tranquillity, 
to promote the general welf are, and to secure the 
blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity," 
has not already the implied constitutional power 
to suppress a public business so subversive of these 
ends. Over in Canada, in 1895, the Canadian 
Supreme Court declared that the power to sup- 
press the liquor trade in all its phases belongs ex- 
clusively to the Dominion, a decision that was af- 
firmed by the Imperial Privy Council, upon ap- 
peal, in 1896. The court held that all local option 
laws in the provinces were valid, however. If 
this is a question for national action in Canada, 
why not also in the United States ? 

The Federal Government does not now, as a 
matter of fact, respect the prerogative of the 
States to deal with this question ; for after a State 
has outlawed the liquor trade, the Government in 
the exercise of its interstate commerce control will 
still allow liquor to be shipped in, and will collect 
revenue from every illicit vender in the State, as 
the price of peace. If the State has sovereign au- 
thority over this particular form of industry, then 
Uncle Sam, whom we like to think of highly, be- 



The Lessors of Experience. 379 

comes in this instance nothing less than a particeps 
criminis. The shrewd, wizened countenance, the 
half-closed eyes, the cigar — as our newspaper ar- 
tists conceive of him — these, in that case, become 
him well. And if the Government is not bound 
to respect the prohibition policy of a State, is it 
any more bound to respect the license policy of 
another State ? Has not a government which ex- 
ercises the prerogative to single out and tax a busi- 
ness heavily, and upon the non-payment of the tax, 
to suppress it, has it not also the power, under the 
same authority, to abate the business when it has 
manifestly become an intolerable nuisance ? An 
amendment to the Constitution will, at any rate, 
remove any possibility of quibble, and will make 
prohibition not only judicially safe, but also rea- 
sonably safe against repeal. 

With the amendment secured by the means we 
have indicated, a great work yet remains. Suita- 
ble and adequate measures must be enacted by 
Congress to carry the provisions of the amend- 
ment into effect. This needs to be well done. For 
this purpose the temperance voters who stood to- 
gether on the amendment must still stand together 



3 SO A Cextuky of Deixk Ezfoe^i. 

and see that the right men are kept in Congress 
for this work. The law now having been made, 
and well made we will say, the next matter to con- 
sider will be the executive force to carry it into 
effect. Here the temperance voters must stand to- 
gether in every voting precinct in the country and 
agree only upon such men, from President to con- 
stable, who are squarely committed to prohibition. 
Xo other issue or consideration must divide them, 
With the mighty Federal executive enginery now 
in the hands of the sworn friends of temperance. 
the prohibition policy will for the first time have 
what one might call a fair ::; [. :,- fair, for in- 
stance, as the financial policies of our Government 
have had. 

But the work is not yet done. Beware the 
ides of Xovember ! In the tumult of the next 
election there will be some political knifing. The 
good citizen must not be unprepared. The tem- 
perance voters who have stood together so well may 
not yet separate and turn to other issues. They 
must now fomi a temperance c : ncy and 

stand back of the executive, and retain him, or 
one like him. in ofiice. They inust^ as a temper- 



The Lessors of Experience. 381 

ance constituency, stand back of the individual 
members of Congress and retain them, or those 
like them, in office, lest measures be passed weak- 
ening prohibition, or the entire question be again 
unexpectedly submitted to the people before the 
policy has been fairly tried. 

During these years the temperance forces 
must stand together solidly on this one issue. 
They must refuse to give recognition to any other 
question that might divide them. As the liquor 
interests have for many years been a political unit 
as touching their business, holding all other inter- 
ests as secondary, so the temperance interests must 
be a political unit as touching their business, hold- 
ing all other considerations as secondary. The 
contention that other questions are too important 
thus to wait upon this one, is little to the point, 
frequently as it is heard. It does not follow that 
all other questions would have to wait, that noth- 
ing would be done during these years but to sit 
by and watch the workings of the prohibition law. 
Congress does many things at a single sitting. It 
is not a question of doing only one thing when a 
hundred are to be done, but of doing a particular 



352 A Cextttkt of Dei^k Eefoe^i. 

thing — long postponed — first, then attending to 
other business equally well, perhaps better. A leg- 
islative In iv tkat can dispone of the drink ques- 
tion will be able to oope, with reasonable assur- 
ance, with other questions that properly come be- 
fore it. This is then the difference: when the 
temperance voter makes a party name the condi- 
tion of his ballot, the party may win and certain 
things be done, but it will not be the drink ques- 
fchat will be settled: when the temperance 
voter, on the other hand, makes the temperance 
principle the condition of his ballot, entirely dis- 
entangled from party influence, his candidate, too, 
will win: other things, too, will be done, and the 
drink question will he settled. On wholly prac- 
tical grounds, therefore, will the temperance forces 
be justified in standing solidly together and mak- 
ing the temperance principle instead of a party 
name the basis of union in political action. The 
country will hardly go to ruin. The good Lord 
takes care of us now: He will not take less care of 
a people that seek first His righteousness. 

Such concerted, consistent action in every 
place, all over the nation by the friends of tern- 



The Lessons of Experience. 383 

perance everywhere, will require organization. 
This mass of voters must become a body, or it will 
go to pieces. Loyalty to one supreme principle 
must constitute, its cohesive power. There must 
be intercommunication, mutual information, 
mutual confidence. There must be faithful lead- 
ership and wise counsel. Funds must be collected 
and properly applied. Literature must be pre- 
pared and distributed, and many forms of special- 
ized work must be done. Without organization 
on a temperance basis there can not be unity of 
action in securing temperance results. 

Then, after a period of thorough enforcement, 
secured and maintained by such methods, when 
the saloon, like a plague spot, shall have been 
wiped from every community ; when the vast sums 
now spent annually for liquor shall go into chan- 
nels of productive industry, — into flour and shoes 
and clothing, books and pictures and pianos, into 
good roads arid good houses, into education, relig- 
ion and philanthropy, — and legitimate trade shall 
have everywhere expanded; when every home 
shall be happier and every community a better 
place to live in; when a generation shall have 



384 A Century of Drink Reform. 

grown up that has never known the habit for 
liquor, nor the sight of a drunkard; when the 
storm of prejudice, of self-interest, and of appe- 
tite shall have subsided, — then the victory will be 
complete; then a reform more strongly contested, 
and more fraught w r ith blessings for mankind than 
any other ever known, perhaps, will have been ac- 
complished. Thenceforth men will be as likely to 
propose a return to the saloon system, as they are 
likely to-day to propose a return to the days of 
chattel slavery. 



(III.) 

CHAPTEK XII. 
The Prohibition Party Movement. 

To this political movement, built upon lines 
of a distinctive temperance constituency, and ad- 
dressing itself specifically to this one question, — 
an organized movement, which, while in all its his- 
tory it has never carried a State or National elec- 
tion, has resisted disintegration and survived de- 
feat — we shall devote our final chapter. 

But before entering upon a discussion of this 
movement, with a view to making it more intelli- 
gible, we must pause and understand clearly the 
philosophy and method of popular government, 
and the nature and function of a political party. 
A party, in the proper sense, is not a permanent, 
self-existing, self-perpetuating political body, co- 
extensive with the government, with a beginning 
only, but no end. It exists not for itself, but for 
the people, whose creature it is and whose interests 
it must serve. Its tenure of life is conditioned by 
25 385 



386 A Century of Drink Reform. 

the work it has been called into being to perform. 
Thus, the people and their interests are every- 
thing; the party nothing. The people rule; the 
party is the servant. The people are free — not 
bound by sect, creed, or party, bound only by the 
law of right. Statute laws they make or unmake, 
as the interests of the entire people may demand. 
Parties are formed or dissolved, according as the 
occasion for them may arise or cease. When in 
the exigency of time an important new issue is 
thrust forward, for instance, the citizens, after full 
and free discussion, unhampered, will arrange 
themselves about it according to their several con- 
victions, and through the electorate the majority 
conviction is carried into effect of law. This con- 
certed action to carry out a specific governmental 
policy ; this standing together, if the policy awak- 
ens opposition, until it shall have been thoroughly 
established or tried — this is what properly consti- 
tutes a party and party action. The principle or 
issue comes logically first, therefore; the party 
afterward. The issue should form the party, not 
the party the issue. As long as the issue remains 
at stake, its supporters must remain together as a 



The Prohibition Party Movement. 387 

party, disposing of such other matters of lesser im- 
portance as may in the meantime come within the 
province of governmental action. When the main 
issue is established, the work of the party is done, 
and it should be dissolved. That is to say, when 
the soul, which has lived and wrought, has gone, 
the body is dead, and must be allowed to return to 
its constituent elements, to enter new forms. This 
is nature's method of renewal. In like manner 
the elements of a nation's citizenship, when a 
given work has been done, should be again free and 
assimilable to vital new political principles, to en- 
ter new formations for new work. Thus will a 
nation's life be kept both pure and progressive. 

Or as the issues on a field of battle will de- 
pend largely upon the mobility of the army, the 
commander forming and re-forming, and dispos- 
ing his men as the situation and the changing 
movements of the enemy shall require, so in that 
succession of battles of a nation's peace army, in 
which, with the weapons of a freeman's ballot, in- 
justice, greed, and oppression are to be vanquished, 
the measure of success will depend largely upon 
the mobility of the citizen soldiery, in being able 



35^ A Cextttby of Dees-k Refoe^i. 

to form and re-form with freedom and celerity, 
moving in attack now here^ now there, as the 
enemy in various places and forms shall threaten. 
The general who leads this citizen host in ever new 
battle formation is known as the statesman. He 
is not a "politician ;" he is not a "party man/' but 
a man of the people, serving them, and God. He 
doe3 not push himself forward, seeking honors 
and office, but in the nation's exigency he is drawn 
forth. And when his service to his country is 
done, like Cincinnatus of old, he returns to his 
plow. 

Herein lies the glory of free republican insti- 
tutions. The political initiative lies with the free 
people, and it is they as a whole, not a part or a 
party, that forms the political unit and the basis 
of civic loyalty. It was for such a government 
of the people, by the people, and for the people, 
that our forefathers fought and the brave men in 
the days of Lincoln died. Washington stood for 
it. History says of his election, that it was "by 
the whole people." He bitterly lamented, with a 
vision that was prophetic, the slow but sure forma- 
tion in his day of two distinct, integral, mutually 



The Prohibition Party Movement. 389 

hostile, permanent political bodies, the beginnings 
of the dual party system, that Scylla and Charyb- 
dis of popular government, between which many 
a precious interest of the people is lost. 

The national political formation known as the 
Prohibition party embodies the correct funda- 
mental conception of popular government. The 
principle came first. After decades of agitation and 
labor the issue was thrust forward, during the 
fifties, as the culmination of a great reformation. 
Prom the several States dealing with the question 
individually it was about to assume a national 
scope, when the menacing activity of the slave 
power suddenly threw into the foreground another 
issue, which quickly drew to itself the suffrages of 
the people, formed a new political party, and 
wiped out the infamy of slavery forever. The 
Republican party had a proper birth. It was a 
great principle that brought it into being. The 
party wrought nobly and well — better than it 
knew. Beginning with opposing the further ex- 
tension of slavery simply, it ended with its entire 
destruction. With the war and the days of recon- 
struction over, its work was properly done. 



390 A Cejstttjry of Dri^k Reform. 

When the raging storm of Civil War was over, 
and the debris had been removed, and the dead 
buried, the temperance question, which but yes- 
terday had been uppermost in men's minds, and 
first on the program of reform, pressed forward 
again. It claimed precedence by right both of its 
own importance and of its maturity for action. 
Concerted action was in fact becoming urgent, for 
during the war the liquor interests had organized 
and entered politics, and had recently uttered ugly 
threats against the widespread temperance ac- 
tivity. It was no time to sit idly by and see the 
fruits of a great reform slip away. 

It was in such an exigency that the Prohibi- 
tion party movement took shape. A new work 
was at hand, a new principle seeking political em- 
bodiment. For has not every soul or life princi- 
ple its own body, adapted to and representative 
of itself ? Because a group of persons think alike, 
and have acted together, upon one thing, it does 
not follow that they will also think alike and act 
together upon a different thing. Every signal re- 
form requires a re-forming of political constit- 
uencies. Unless this is done, will not the work be 



The Prohibition Party Movement. 391 

greatly hampered and delayed, or made im- 
possible ? 

The political history of our land during the 
last thirty years, since the inception of this move- 
ment, shows, however, the anomalous fact that at 
no time during this period has the temperance 
contingent in our citizenship been sufficiently free 
to become assimilable to this one great central 
principle — this • in face of the most widespread, 
continued, and solemn protestations of its primal 
urgency. 

The causes for this are not wholly obscure. 
When the great general said, "The war is over, 
let us have peace," the bitter passions engendered 
in the conflict were by no means at once extin- 
guished. The vacant chair in homes all over the 
land was too severe a reminder of the awful frat- 
ricidal strife. And the politician, too — God have 
mercy on his soul — instead of seeking to cement 
the bonds of a broken national unity, had to make 
political capital out of the circumstance that there 
had been a rebellion. The sectionalism and party 
animosity thus accentuated and kept awakened 
did not prepare men's minds for free united 



392 A Cextuey or Deen'k Eefoem. 

action on the question of temperance. It did serve, 
as a matter of fact, to fasten upon us that very 
spirit of party passion over which, like a stone of 
stumbling, the temperance cause has been griev- 
ously hurt. 

Later, when the wounds of battle were heal- 
ing over; when this "waving the bloody shirt" by 
the deinogague was becoming less effectual and, 
failing to serve its purpose, ceased ; when men re- 
membered that there had been a temperance ques- 
tion, they said (not finding it on their party pro- 
gram), "But the people are not ready for this 
question.' 7 To which it was replied, "Help us 
get them ready. How do you know they are not 
ready? Are you ready? and you? and you Le: 
us stand together then and see how strong we 
really are." Then, a little later, as if recogniz- 
ing the- necessity for a mass movement on this 
question, temperance men who wanted to retain 
their membership in an historical party and still 
in some way settle the drink question, said again, 
"It is a mistake to make this question a football 
of party politics; it can only be accomplished by 
non-partisan effort." So the "National League 
for the Suppression of the Liquor Traffic — Xon- 



The Prohibition Party Movement. 393 

Partisan and K"on-Sectarian," was called into be- 
ing — " thrust forth by Providence/' to use the lan- 
guage of its chief founder. This, as we have seen, 
lived but a short time. To try to dislodge an 
enemy without making it a party matter, when 
the enemy is entrenched not so much behind the 
law simply, as behind the dual party system of 
making and administering the law — this was found 
to be inadequate and impracticable. But interest 
in the cause was waxing, and men could not be 
contented to leave it here. So still trying to settle 
this question without disarranging party lines — 
party ties since the war having become strong — 
it was said again, "The strength of the temperance 
sentiment is in the Republican party; that party 
shall take up the question." Whereupon came the 
Anti-Saloon Republican movement, which we 
have also noted. This distinctively and avowedly 
partisan movement started out as sanguinely as 
did the preceding non-partisan movement. But 
the Republican party, as we have seen, hesitated, 
and then refused, to father the child, and after a 
last effort for its recognition, in the campaign of 
1888, it died also, 



394 A Cextuby of Dbi:n t k Refobm. 

But the cause was not to rest even here. Men 
loved their party, it was true ; but they loved the 
cause of temperance also. The next, and most 
recent, movement was to embody some concessions 
on both sides. The temperance question was not 
to press itself peremptorily upon any party, for 
recognition as a party issue, on the one hand ; nor, 
on the other hand, were party ties to be so strong 
as to bind a man irrevocably to his party's candi- 
date in every local election. That is, the move- 
ment was not to concern itself so much with na- 
tional platforms and policies, as it was to turn the 
scales in local contests, by throwing its influence 
to the candidate, among the two or more who stand 
a chance of being elected, who is most favorably 
disposed toward the temperance cause. This is 
the National Anti-Saloon League, a movement 
that began with the formation of the Ohio State 
Anti-Saloon League, at Oberlin, in 1893. On its 
political side the League fights the battles of tem- 
perance with the same weapons which the liquor 
power has so successfully used these many years ; 
namely, the business-above-party, balance-of-power 
method. In this, however, the League lacks cer- 



The Prohibition Party Movement. 395 

tain advantages possessed by the liquor power, 
with this further difference: the League exercises 
discrimination only in local or legislative contests, 
generally, still supporting in a national canvass 
parties that are committed to the policy of license 
and perpetuation, whereas if any party in its na- 
tional platform should pronounce for the prohibi- 
tion of the liquor traffic, the liquor power would 
throw its undivided influence against that party 
and defeat it. 

Notwithstanding the fact that the xinti-Saloon 
League is not itself a political temperance organ- 
ism, therefore, party Prohibitionists have gener- 
ally given it their sympathy, and not a few their 
active co-operation, on account of its work in the 
fields of agitation, and education, and law enforce- 
ment. As for the portion of temperance senti- 
ment in the land that has not been brought under 
the direction of the League, nor into the ranks of 
the Prohibition party, it has during these years 
confined itself to resolutions and editorials and 
public denunciations of the drink business, supple- 
menting it generally by voting no-license in local 
elections, when the question is up, where party 



396 A Century of Drink Reform. 

prejudices are not awakened nor party ties dis- 
turbed. The political leaders, who in the interests 
of self-preservation and party success have never 
ceased to declare that this is not a political issue, 
have successfully diverted the public mind, on the 
day of national election, to questions of commerce 
and finance. 

In this way it has come about that the great 
temperance principle has never yet received a suffi- 
ciently complete political embodiment to give it 
final and lasting success. Beginning with the year 
1872, when James Black received 5,607 votes, 
mostly from Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, 
the Prohibition party vote in successive national 
campaigns has been as follows: In 1876, for 
Green Clay Smith, 9,737; in 1880, for K"eal Dow, 
10,366; in 1884, for St. John, 150,626; in 1888, 
for Clinton B. Pisk, 249,907; in 1892, for John 
Bidwell, 279,191. Up to this time the gain, if 
somewhat slow, was steady. However, at the na- 
tional convention in 1896, in Pittsburg, a division 
occurred over the question whether the party 
should adopt a "broad gauge" or a "narrow gauge" 
platform; that is, whether the party should take 



The Prohibition Party Movement. 397 

a position upon general questions of finance that 
were engaging the attention of the country at that 
time, or whether the party should confine itself to 
the one great issue to which it was born. When 
the majority sentiment expressed itself for the 
latter course, a number of delegates left the con- 
vention hall and nominated a separate ticket, with 
Mr. Charles E. Bentley, of Nebraska, at its head. 
They called themselves the National party. Re- 
ceiving only a small vote the party ceased to exist 
as a party after the campaign. This circumstance, 
together with the widespread, intense interest 
created during the campaign on the question of 
sound money, deflecting public interest from an 
issue so largely moral as the drink question, 
caused the vote of the Prohibition party nominee, 
Mr. Joshua Levering, for that year to fall to 132,- 
009. A good percentage of gain was made again 
in the election of 1900, when Mr. John G. Wool- 
ley, after an aggressive and spirited canvass, polled 
209,936 votes. 

The fact that this movement has not been 
more largely supported ; that it has ever remained 
so far from carrying a national election, this is 



398 A Century of Drink Reform. 

a matter for the most earnest consideration by both 
those within, and those outside of the party move- 
ment. For let it be borne in mind, on the one 
hand, that this movement rests upon sound polit- 
ical philosophy, namely, that every signal new 
issue must gather to itself afresh an organized 
political constituency, or "party," to carry it into 
effect, — a position not true in the abstract simply, 
but one which the temperance history — the rever- 
sions and "failures of prohibition" — since the 
Civil War has demonstrated with a cogency that 
can not be honestly evaded. On the other hand, it 
must not escape candid reflection that in practical 
politics reason and philosophy do not always find 
free course — have not so found in the instance of 
this reform; that while it may be true that had 
the temperance sentiment of the country united in 
this movement and made the temperance question 
the dominant issue in American politics, this ques- 
tion would probably have been irrevocably settled, 
the fact is that temperance sentiment has not be- 
come thus united, the temperance question has not 
been made the dominant issue in American poli- 
tics, and the contest is not settled. 



The Prohibition Party Movement. 399 

So let us ask ourselves with all candor this 
question: Whatever may be one's convictions as 
to the right and logical necessity of the Prohibi- 
tion party movement, what prospect has that party 
to-day of actually getting into power ? Por in 
matters of statecraft the ultimate criterion of con- 
duct must take into account not alone, Is it right 
and logical ? but also, What am I likely by such a 
course to achieve? And since this movement has 
up to the present time come so far short of its 
goal, what, if anything, is there in the present 
political situation that would justify the citizen 
in allying himself with this party, when other is- 
sues of more or less importance, by other parties, 
are before the people, upon which there is a pros- 
pect of winning? Of all the obstacles that have 
been met with in the temperance reformation, 
none probably has been more stubborn and perplex- 
ing than this. 

What shall we say, then ? It is here that the 
logic of events, after rough handling, has brought 
us. It was here that Gough came, after he had 
wrought in the cause for forty years, the most 
famed of the world's temperance apostles. The 



400 A Century of Drink Reform. 

young man, John B. Finch, consecrated his match- 
less talents to this movement. Haddock fell here, 
a martyr. Generals Neal Dow and Clinton Fisk, 
intrepid warriors in every peace battle of God, led 
the fight here. Miss Frances Willard, with rich 
gifts consecrated to humanity, from deaf ears 
turned here for hope. These all died in the faith. 
Shall it be said that what men, after weary search, 
believed to be the way of hope — a way first pointed 
out by the supreme body of the world's largest and 
most active temperance order — is how only the 
place of confusion and despair ? 

One can only say this : do not lightly give up 
logic; by that sign man shall conquer. Logic is 
not an abstract thing from the hazy realm of meta- 
physics; it is the form of omnipotence! Every- 
where in society we find traces of its work. It is 
sometimes slow getting under way; but once it 
gets its momentum men will fly for their life! 
The pent-up indignation everywhere against the 
liquor business and against the infamy of its offi- 
cial sanction, this is the sure ground of promise. 
Out of these elements the cause will gather to it- 
self momentum, some day — before very long. We 



The Prohibition Party Movement. 401 

must allow something yet for conscience and in- 
telligence. It may, or may not, be that men have 
not voted in accordance with their prayers, but it 
is their prayers, nevertheless, that speak their 
souls' genuine desire; and if they shall continue 
to receive not they will learn some day that it is 
because they have been asking amiss. Prejudice, 
self-interest, party love — these may be strong, but 
they are not stronger than love of truth and honor 
and right. They of the Church who send mission- 
aries to the ends of the earth that they may teach 
idolatrous and fetich-worshiping peoples of the one 
true God who is spirit and truth, will not bow 
forever to the fetich of a party name in their own 
midst. 

But there is this to be said further, and finally : 
the inference that a citizen's support of a party 
or party movement is justified only in the event 
of a probability of immediate majorities at the 
polls, can hardly be established as a valid general 
principle, and in this instance is not pertinent. 
There are two distinct stages before us before the 
goal of the temperance reform is reached. To 
elect a ticket is the second step only, the last thing 
26 



402 A Ceettuby or DpwIxk Reform. 

to be done. Tlie first step — the longer and harder 
of the two — is to win recognition for this question 
as an issue in general politics; to get it squarely 
before the people for an honest vote ; to deliver the 
question from the eternal torment of local politics 
and make it national. That sermons, prayers, 
resolutions, petitions, appeals will not accomplish 
this has been thoroughly demonstrated. Only 
votes cast for this specific issue in sufficient num- 
bers will accomplish it. This does not require 
majorities. A respectable, united minority will 
do it. To accomplish this is the immediate pro- 
gram of the Prohibition party movement. 

Thus in the coming election, while it will re- 
quire something like six or seven million or more 
votes to elect a national ticket, to win recognition 
for the drink issue would require probably not 
more than a half million votes. Such a vote cast 
for this specific issue would give it sufficient prom- 
inence — would thrust it so plainly in sight in the 
political arena — that it would become impossible 
longer to ignore it. That the Prohibition party, 
which has never been more completely organized 
than now 4 nor pushed its work more aggressively, 



The Prohibition Party Movement. 403 

will yet succeed in this, — this does not seem to lie 
beyond the measure of belief. 

What will happen when this point has been 
reached no man may foresee. This much only is 
reasonably certain, that when the American peo- 
ple once grapple this question in close embrace, 
the saloon will be done for; it will be settled for 
good. The Prohibition party may gather into it- 
self the temperance elements of the nation, be- 
come itself the dominant party and carry the issue 
to a successful close. This would from now on 
become comparatively easy and rapid ; for there is 
law of gravitation for political bodies as there is 
for bodies terrestrial; namely, that attraction in- 
creases with the mass and with the nearness with 
which the object sought is at hand. With the op- 
position vote distributed among several parties 
such success might become possible without an ac- 
tual majority vote. The Republican party came 
into power in 1860, when it had polled only two- 
fifths of the total popular vote. 

Or there may be a new alignment of political 
parties, one of the larger parties perhaps taking 
up the question, for the sake of its own life, or 



404 A Century of Drink Reform. 

when it shall offer success at the polls. Or, again, 
an entirely new party may emerge when the con- 
gest shall become general. 

The Prohibition party movement, then, must 
find its justification in the necessity of the imme- 
diate political situation; in the conviction that 
enough men can be brought together to accomplish 
this essential first work, — men whom the Lo here ! 
and the Lo there! of the professional party jug- 
gler at each quadrennial political pageant shall 
cease to allure and turn aside, absolutely unmoved 
by the prediction that the nation will perish if 
the other party is allowed to win; men who be- 
lieve that the powers that be, ordained as they are 
of God, should facilitate and further the work 
of God — that they should rise in the electorate 
above personalities and the sounding of party 
plaudits, above rates and schedules, to men, to the 
real interests of a people, the sobriety, health, and 
virtue of its citizenship, the purity and peace of 
its homes, the sacred maintenance of a sound civic 
conscience, — it is the conviction, we repeat, that 
out of America's enfranchised citizenship a half 
million and more such men will yet stand together 



The Prohibition Pakty Movement. 405 

upon a platform that calls for the national sup- 
pression of the trade in strong drink — which 
reaches all these interests more widely than any 
measure that governments have thus far yet em- 
ployed or proposed, — that must constitute the hope 
and the justification for the organized prohibition 
movement, which shall clear a way out of this wil- 
derness and ambush warfare into the open, where 
the struggle will be fought to a finish. 



INDEX. 



Page 

Abstinence, early embodied 

in reform 52 

Correct personal princi- 
ple 279 

Alcohol, first effects of... 298 

American Temperance So- 
ciety formed 52 

Report of progress 71 

Merged in American 
Temperance Union ... 83 

American Temperance Un- 
ion 83 

Superseded by National 
Temperance Society 

and Publication-house.. 225 

American Tract Society. 48, 60 

Anti-canteen law .........243 

Anti-saloon League, Na- 
tional 276, 394 

Anti-saloon Republican 
Movement 271 

Appleton, Gen. James, on 

license laws 122 

Army, spirit ration abol- 
ished 72 

Atwater, Prof. W. O.. ex- 
periments with alcohol. 2 92 

Beecher, Rev. Lyman, pio- 
neer in reform 35 

His report on temperance 
at General Association 

of Connecticut 42 

His six sermons 49 

Benezet, Anthony, forerun- 
ner of reform 33 

Bible wines controversy... 86 
Black, James ...224, 253, 396 
Blair, Henry W..268, 274, 294 

407 



Page 

Blue Ribbon Movement. . . .232 

Brewers' Association, The 

U. S 179, 162, 249, 250 

Cadets of Temperance 93 

Cass, General Lewis, pro- 

. moter of temperance. 72, 73 

Catholic Total Abstinence 
Union 227 

Chapia, Rev. Calvin, early 
advocate 56 

Cheever, Rev. Geo. B., 
, "Deacon Giles' Distil- 
lery" 69 

Church (Episcopal) Tem- 
perance Society 229 

College Presidents in early 

reform 63 

Committee of Fifty 293 

Congregational Churches 

take up question 42 

Congressional Temperance 

Society 73, 96 

Constitutional prohibition. 

State 263 

National, labored for.... 266 

Convention, National Tem- 
perance, first 74 

Second 76, 83 

World's first 97 

Second 126 

Crusade, The Woman's. .. .234 

"Deacon Amos Giles' Dis- 
tillery" 69 

Delavan, Edward C 85, 97 

Democratic Party, attitude 

on temperance ...271, 336 

Dispensary System 258 

Dorchester, Rev. Daniel... 270 



408 



Index. 



Page 
Dow, Neal. brine's in era of 

prohibition 

107. 116, 126. 396 
Drink. See Liquor. 

Edwards, Rev. Justin, mas- 
ter organizer of early 
reform ..48, 67, 73, 82, 83 

Episcopal Church Temper- 
ance Society 229 

Europe, temperance reform 
introduced from Amer- 
ica 65, 85 

Fifty, Committee of 293 

Finch, John B. ...95, 235, 400 
Fisk, Gen. Clinton B. .272, 396 
Fisk, Rev. Wilbur, early 
temperance leader in 

Methodism 62 

Foster, Mrs. J. Ellen. 245, 270 

Garrison, Wm. Lloyd, early 

temperance editor 57 

Germany, effects of beer 

drinking in 290 

Leaders in temperance. .298 
Good Templars, Independ- 
ent Order of 94 

Gothenturg System 259 

Gough, John B. ..100, 272, 399 
Griffin, Albert, leader Anti- 
saloon Republican 
Movement 273 

Haddock, Rev. Geo. C, 
murdered 184 

Hastings, Samuel D 95 

Hawkins, John H. W., 
leader of Washingto- 
nianism 89 

Hepburn-Dolliver Bill, in- 
terstate commerce in 
liquor 320 

Hewit, Rev. Nathaniel, 
Luther of early reform 

56. 81 

High License policy in- 
augurated 256 

Hitchcock, Prof. Edward. . 61 

Humphrey, Rev. Heman, 
powerful early advo- 
cate 38. 63. 68 

Hunt, Rev. Thomas P., 
temperance lecturer... 98 



Page 
Internal Revenue, Bureau 

of, created 139 

International Anti-alcoholic 

Congress 291 

Interstate commerce, as af- 
fecting prohibition 319 

Iowa, case of prohibition in 

345. 354 

Jewett, Dr. Charles* tem- 
perance lecturer . .98, 226 

Judicial Decisions. See Su- 
preme Court. 

Kittredge, Jonathan. ad- 
dress on temperance. 58 

Law and Order Leagues, 

organized 254 

Lewis, Dr. Dio. relation to 

woman's crusade 235 

Lincoln, Abraham, work in 

temperance 90 

Liquor, amount annually 

expended for 211 

Capital invested in pro- 
duction of 157 

Consumption of ....157, 159 
Organization of — inter- 
ests 179. 182 

Taxation of. by Federal 

Government 140, 165 

Under expansion 170 

Litchfield. agreement 
among farmers in 

county 34 

Local option, early in oper- 
ation 119 

Handicap of 317 

Ethics of 323 

Loyal Temperance Legion.. 242 

Marsh, Rev. John. "Put- 
nam and the Wolf". 61, 76 
Secretary American Tem- 
perance Union ... .84, 131 

Massachusetts Society for 
the Suppression of In- 
temperance 45 

Mathew, Father Theobald, 
Irish apostle of tem- 
perance in America. . .101 

Methodist Church first 
takes up question 40 



Index. 



409 



Page 
Moreau, N. Y. f Temperance 

Society 37 

Murphy, Francis, Blue Rib- 
bon Movement ...... 232 

Mussey, Prof. R. D.. ad- 
dress on temperance. . . 60 

National Anti-saloon 

League 276 

National League for the 
Suppression of Liquor 
Traffic 269 

National Philanthropist, 
first temperance news- 
paper 57 

National Temperance Con- 
vention, first 44 

Second 76. 83 

National Temperance So- 
ciety and Publication- 
house 225 

Navy, grog banished from. 91 

Nott, Eliphalet, powerful 
early advocate 63 

Orders, Fraternal Temper- 
ance 92f, 226 

"Original Package" Deci- 
sion 319 

Pearson, Rev. Samuel F„ 

Sheriff of Portland 363 

Pepper, Dr. William, on al- 
cohol 294 

Porter, Rev. Ebenezer, ser- 
mon on intemperanc?.. 37 

Presbyterian Church ap- 
points committee on 
temperance 39 

Prohibition, logical culmi- 
nation of reform. .107, 122 
Correct public policy. .. .299 

Enacted: Maine 111,124 

Minnesota, Rhode Island, 
Massachusetts. Ver- 
mont 125 

Michigan 126 

Connecticut 127 

New York 128 

New Hampshire 129 

Delaware, Nebraska, In- 
diana 130 



Page 

Prohibition— 

(Constitutional) Kansas, 
Iowa, Maine, Rhode Is- 
land, North Dakota, 
South Dakota 265 

Party, organized 

253. 269, 271, 385ff 

Repeals of. Delaware, 
Nebraska, Indiana, 
Rhcde Island. Massa- 
chusetts, Connecticut. 
Michigan 248 

South Dakota 262 

Vermont, New Hamp- 
shire 306, 355 

Rechabites, Independent 

Order of 92 

Red Ribbon Movement. .. .232 

Reform Clubs. The 230 

Republican party, attitude 

on temperance 

27L 275. 336, 338 

Reynolds, Dr. Henry A., 

Reform Clubs 231 

Royal Templars of Temper- 
ance 226 

Rush, Dr. Benjamin, origi- 
nator of temperance 

refcrmation 22 

His "Inquiry" 25-31 

At Presbyterian General 
Assembly 39 

Sargent, Lucius, Temper- 
ance Tales 68 

Science and alcohol 292 

Scientific temperance in- 
struction in schools. . .243 
Sewall, Dr.. charts of hu- 
man stomach 97 

Slavery Reform, its relation 
to temperance reform. 132 

Smith, Gerrit. 118,253 

Sons of Temperance 93 

Stearns, J. N.. secretary 
National Temperance 

Society 225 

St. John. John P 272, 396 

Stuart, Prof. Moses. Prize 

Essay 61 

Sunday-schools introduce 
temperance lessons. .. .243 



410 



Index. 



Page 
Supreme Court. U. S.. de- 
cisions bearing on 

drink question 

119. 183, 319 

Temperance Societies, first 
crude efforts 36 

Taxation. See Liquor. 

Teetotalism introduced 

into reform 76 

In Europe 81 

Temperance Tales, Sargent. 68 

Templars of Honor and 
Temperance 94 



Page 
Thompson, Mrs. Eliza J., 
leader of Woman's 
Crusade 235 

Washingtonian movement.. 87 

Willard, Miss Frances 

239, 246, 269, 400 

Wilson, Henry W., opposes 
Federal tax on liquor.. 141 

Woman's Christian Tem- 
perance Union 238, 247 

Woman's Crusade,. The 234 






AUG 19 \&» 



